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Algorithms of life

9 August 2006

Dr Sarah Boyd has won an award that will fund her postdoctoral studies at Monash and see her collaborate with researchers at the Burnham Institute of Medical Research in California.

Monash IT Research Fellow Dr Sarah Boyd has won an award from the Burnham Institute of Medical Research in California that will fund her postdoctoral studies at Monash and see her collaborate with top US researchers.

Dr Boyd will be employed by the Centre of Proteolytic Pathways (CPP), a US-funded program developing technologies to study how individual proteins assemble and interact in biological processes.

She was invited to join the CPP because of her PhD research into computational analysis and prediction of how proteases work.

Proteases are enzymes that break up proteins. A complete understanding of their function is required to understand how living organisms grow, how diseases develop and how life processes are regulated.

"The reason you are able to digest your sandwich at lunchtime is because a protease comes along and cuts all of the protein in your sandwich into billions of little pieces," Dr Boyd said. "Proteases control your digestion, your immune system, your blood pressure, your growth and necessary cell death -- they are everywhere."

Dr Boyd said proteases also had enormous promise for controlling many human conditions, including cancers, autoimmune diseases and bacterial and viral infections.

In her position within the bioinformatics core of the CPP Proteolysis Map (PMAP), Dr Boyd is continuing her research developing new computational algorithms to assist researchers to understand and identify the role of proteases in disease and methods for inhibiting them as treatment.

She said it was a privilege to work with such high-calibre scientists as those at the Burnham Institute, along with collaborators at Stanford University, the University of California and Wayne State University. "The work leveraged my PhD research and will allow me to go to the next step," she said.

Professor David Abramson, from Monash's IT faculty, said the Burnham Institute had noticed Dr Boyd's work and pursued her until she agreed to work with them.

Associate Professor Andrei Osterman of the Burnham Institute said the software tools developed by Dr Boyd during her PhD were among the first real breakthroughs in bioinformatics of proteolysis. "We are excited to extend our collaboration with her and with Monash University," he said.