Dr. Rhoda Joy Hawkins is the Academic Director of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Ghana, and a senior lecturer in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Sheffield, UK.
In the International Symposium "Frontier Science at the Interface of Physics and Biology" she will be in a tandem talk with Simon Jonhston.
TITLE: Biophysical interactions in infectious disease
ABSTRACT: Infectious disease is still the world’s biggest health problem. In our research we are studying how the interactions of pathogens with our immune system determines the outcome of an infection. We combine analytical and computational models from theoretical biophysics with cell and animal models of human infection from experimental cell biology. In this talk we will describe the timeline of our story of working together and introduce you to some science of interactions between microbes and immune cells that we have studied. Along the way we will expose to you some challenges we have had and continue to face in our interactions between biology and physics. We will highlight the benefits of working at this interface and hope to give you a sense of the fun we have. Simon is a cell biologist who studies the immune system and infection. Their particular interest is in life-threatening opportunistic infections in people with immunocompromise. They primarily use quantification of live imaging in experimental animal and cell models systems. Rhoda is a theoretical physicist with a particular interest in modelling mechanics of cell migration and deformation using both analytical calculations and simulations. Rhoda and Simon both have experience of studying the actin cytoskeleton and this was the common ground that started their conversation.
