September 1, Tuesday, 2:30-3:30
Room: North Ross Building 940, York University

Speaker: Laurent Pujo-Menjouet
Title: Mad cow disease: how collaboration between biologists and mathematicians lead to a new discovery about prion formation

Abstract: In a previous work by Alvarez-Martinez et al. (2011), the authors pointed out some fallacies in the mainstream interpretation of the prion amyloid formation. It appeared necessary to propose an original hypothesis able to reconcile the in vitro data with the predictions of a mathematical model describing the problem. During this talk, I will introduce a model developed accordingly with the hypothesis that an intermediate on-pathway leads to the conformation of the prion protein into an amyloid competent isoform thanks to a structure, called micelles, formed from hydrodynamic interaction. I will also compare data to the prediction of our model and propose a new hypothesis for the formation of infectious prion amyloids.

Biosketch of the Speaker: Laurent PUJO-MENJOUET is an Associate Professor at Université Claude Bernard, France. As a recognized active researcher in mathematical biology, he has been serving in the Editorial Boards for the Mathematical Modelling of Natural Phenomena, FRONTIERS in Systems Biology, ISRN Biomathematics, and J. Theoretical Biology. He is a member of the INRIA DRACULA team, and the Coordinator of the Mathematical Modeling in Biology and Medicine team.