Functional Mechanisms of Genetic Risk Factors for Immune-Related Disease
Project Description Who are we? We are a vibrant, outward-looking, multi-disciplinary research group interested in understanding how genetic risk factors can impact on both susceptibility to infection and to autoimmune disease. We have a strong interest in comparing how genetic risk factors from different ancestries impact on risk of infection and in developing autoimmune disease. […]
Groups, Subgroups and Boundedness
Project Description Group theory is the mathematical study of symmetry. Algebraic groups are certain groups of matrices with entries coming from a field such as the real numbers, the complex numbers or the integers modulo a prime. They are important in many areas of pure mathematics including number theory, representation theory and the theory of […]
Algebraic Methods in Musical Composition
Project Description Algebraic operations have been used as compositional tools for centuries. For example, the group theoretical operation of translation on the integers can be identified with the musical operation of transposition. This sort of operation, as well as other more complex operations, are implicit in the fugal form as well as other forms founded […]
Discovering the Fundaments About Why Neural Networks Are so Smart
Project Description Intelligence is one of the pillars that allows some animals to live so complex lives. Scientific approaches recently proposed have been capable of simulating networked systems that reproduce similar emergent manifestations of behavior as those observed in the brain. Why and how a neural network can be trained to process information and produce […]
Active Colloidal-Quantum-Dot Light Emitting Devices: QD Laser and QD LEDs
Project Description Realization of electrically pumped lighting and lasing with colloidal quantum dots will have a revolutionary impact on many disciplines including display, photonics, optical communication, chemical sensing, and medical diagnostics. Due to broadly tunable emission wavelengths and facile particle size-control and viable processability, colloidal quantum dots (QDs) are promising materials for attaining these goals. […]
Understanding the mitotic DNA damage checkpoint in order to develop new cancer treatments
Project Description Resistance to chemotherapy and radiotherapy is a huge problem in cancer mortality. As many anti-cancer therapies act by inflicting vast amounts of DNA damage in order to kill rapidly dividing cancer cells, our own DNA repair systems can contribute to drug resistance by repairing the damage quickly enough to prevent cancer cell death. […]
Dust and gas filaments in the Interstellar Medium
Project Description Herschel observations have revealed that every interstellar giant molecular cloud contains a rich network of filaments (e.g. Andre et al. 2010 A&A 518 L102). There is also a clear correlation between the magnetic field orientations and the density gradients of the filaments (e.g. Soler et al. 2013 ApJ 774 128). However, the origin […]
Control of skeletal muscle regeneration and aging by cell signalling
Project Description The ability of skeletal muscles to regenerate in response to injury, exercise, growth or disease depends on a population of adult skeletal muscle stem cells. With aging, the number and regenerative capacity of the stem cells declines; this contributes to the aging process and ultimately to the loss of muscle mass in elderly […]
The impact of age, ethnicity and UVR exposure on the barrier function of human skin
Project Description Human skin provides a crucial barrier to prevent excessive water loss from the body and to protect against environmental insults, notably ultraviolet radiation (UVR) in sunlight. Epidermal barrier function is maintained by tight junction (TJ) complexes and the hydrophobic, lipid rich stratum corneum. Disruption of barrier function is associated with inflammatory skin conditions […]
Light-based indoor positioning device for mobile devices
Project Description Indoor positioning is still an open problem with wide-ranging applications such as automatic guidance for people or robots, and augmented reality systems. It is usually hard for people to find their way in large buildings such as hospitals, universities, museums. The same is true for mobile robots that need to operate in indoor […]
