Viveka Mayya

I obtained my Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut (U.S.A.). Working in the laboratory of Dr. David K. Han, I developed and implemented proteomic methodologies for quantitative analysis of protein phosphorylation. This enabled us to exhaustively catalogue the changes in phosphorylation in the T cell proteome during TCR signalling. I joined Prof. Michael Dustin's lab at NYU Medical Center (U.S.A.) for post-doctoral work on immune synapse dynamics, which I am continuing here at the Kennedy Institute.

We have developed a MATLAB-based package called TIAM for the analysis of multi-dimensional images of T cells. We make use of the micro-contact printing technology to create artificial surfaces that emulate the main features of antigen presentation in lymphoid organs. Live cell imaging data of T cell behaviour on these artificial surfaces is analysed using TIAM to build quantitative models of immune synapse dynamics.