Regulation of amyloid aggregation in human diseases and bacterial biofilms
Amyloids: Many proteins and peptides spontaneously self-assemble to form fibrillar structures known as amyloids. Unlike the monomeric proteins the amyloids are highly stable being extremely resistant to thermal or chemical denaturation. I am particularly interested in two distinct kinds of amyloids i) those disrupt cellular functions such as fibrils of amyloid-β which causes Alzheimer’s disease and ii) those engender functions such as curli fibers which contribute to the formation of bacterial biofilms.


Figure 1 Image of amyloid-beta1-42 fibrils using Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) in my lab at TIFR Centre for Interdisciplinary Sciences, Hyderabad