Bioinformatics & Computational Biology

I went to the Bioinformatics and Computational Biology laboratory of Dr. El-Sayed to take some photos that will show how technology is used in the University of Maryland to do scientific research. I also used the one thirds rule of photography discussed in the course Information 3.0. Bioinformatics is the latest field that evolved from Biology and the technology that is used is the latest too.

Dr. El-Sayed laboratory works with three pathogens: Trypanosoma brucei, Trypanosoma cruzi and Leishmania major. Trypanosoma is the agent that causes sleeping sickness and continues to affect populations in Africa and South America. The main goal of the lab is to sequence the Trypanosoma genome to find a way to make a vaccine that will exterminate the pathogen and won't harm the human host.

Laboratory assistant of Dr. El-Sayed performing research.

The lab is currently working with a technique that is called the Yeast 2 Hybrid System. The purpose of the assay is to find a Trypanosoma protein that is affecting a human protein. When the protein is found, the team can sequence it and analyze it. Then they can compare the sequence with sequences of other species to see what the protein does and ways to target it.

This machine transfers cells that are infected with Trypanosoma to a medium where only the cells that are affected by the Trypanosoma protein can survive. Then, the cells grow and can be sequenced.

This photo shows that many the machine can tranfer many plates at the same time. In fact, 200 plates can be transferred each time.

The rectangular plate shows the cells that the machine transfers to a different medium. Every dot represent a colony of cells that only grows if is infected by the Trypanosomaprotein. Only the ones that grow are visible to the human eye.