Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Biology

Do the nurse cells play any role in determining the anterior fate of the follicle cells during Drosophila Oogenesis?

Posted in Biology, SPARK! 2026

Author: Sohail Shaik | BiologyAbstract: Axis formation in Drosophila melanogaster is orchestrated through germline–soma interactions during oogenesis. Each egg chamber comprises 15 nurse cells, one oocyte, and a surrounding epithelium of follicle cells (FCs). Signalling pathways including EGFR, BMP/Dpp, and JAK/STAT coordinate anterior-posterior and dorsal-ventral patterning across 14 developmental stages. At stage 9, around 55… continue reading

Switchable Nucleic Acids Nanoparticles for Enhancing Cell Uptake and Drug Delivery

Posted in Computational & Integrative Biology, SPARK! 2026

Author: Qiaochu Zhang | Computational and Integrative BiologyAbstract: Efficient and safe delivery of CRISPR components into hard-to-transfect cells remains a major challenge in gene therapy. We developed programmable tetrahedral DNA nanoparticles (TDN) as carriers for sgRNA/Cas9 complexes to enable intracellular genome editing. Including TDN–sgRNA complexes achieved targeted gene knockout and TDN-delivered Cas9 showed limited activity due… continue reading

Split Aptamer Catalytic Sensor for Detecting Viral Nucleic Acids

Posted in Computational & Integrative Biology, SPARK! 2026

Author: Nishat Jahan | Computational and Integrative BiologyAbstract: Hemin/DNA aptamers can catalyze the hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)-mediated oxidation of various chemical compounds. For instance, hemin/G-quadruplex (G4) complexes convert Amplex Red into fluorescent product resorufin, enabling fluorescence-based detection. Due to their high catalytic efficiency, hemin-binding DNA aptamers have been extensively explored for biosensing applications, particularly in the… continue reading

How Spiders Attach their Webs to Water.

Posted in Computational & Integrative Biology, SPARK! 2026

Author: Ravi Schwartz | Computational and Integrative BiologyAbstract: A common orb web is designed to capture prey with precariously slender elements of extremely strong material. Its function is likewise dependent on the quality of its anchoring the radial dragline ends to external objects, which take the form of “attachment disks” of slenderer threads painted with… continue reading

Prediction of Binding Affinity for Protein–Peptide Systems Using SE(3)-Equivariant Neural Networks

Posted in Computational & Integrative Biology, SPARK! 2026

Author: Aditya Birla | Computational and Integrative BiologyAbstract: Accurate prediction of binding free energy (ΔG) for protein–peptide complexes remains a challenging problem due to the high dimensionality and geometric complexity of molecular interactions. We propose an energy-based framework leveraging SE(3) equivariance to ensure rotational and translational consistency in learned representations. Protein (receptor) and peptide (ligand)… continue reading

DNA-mediated plasmonic nanoparticle tethering to render macromolecular assemblies photosensitive to pulsed laser irradiation

Posted in Computational & Integrative Biology, SPARK! 2026

Author: Regina Salzer | Computational and Integrative BiologyAbstract: The ability to control macromolecular assemblies with light would be transformative for a number of applications such as nanocarriers and drug delivery. Light, specifically pulsed laser irradiation, is an ideal stimulus due to its biocompatibility and high spatiotemporal control. Plasmonic nanoparticles (PNPs), such as gold nanoparticles (AuNPs),… continue reading