BE Board:Akila Jayaraman

For current website see begradboard.mit.edu

Akila Jayaraman Year: 2006 Track: Applied Biosciences Lab: [Ram Sasisekharan][1]

Contact Information Email: akila Phone: 617-253-7666 Office address: Room 16-560, MIT

General Information In this post "omics" era, there has been a lot of interest in understanding post-translational modifications in proteins. One of the post-translational modifications is glycosylation. The study of interaction between these sugars and other proteins is collectively known as "glycomics". These sugars are present in the cell- extracellular matrix interface where they mediate cell-to-cell and cell-ECM interactions. My current interest lies in understanding the role of these sugars in mediating various disease mechanisms such as cancer and infectious diseases such as Influenza A pathogenesis. Gaining more insight into the role of specific glycans will enable development of novel therapeutic and vaccination strategies. If you are interested to know more about sugars please click on the link here [[2]]