My open house

Last last week, the lab went to my place for an open house. We had a $200 Pen Cai, a barrel of KFC and some extra food from the EM unit that was having some seminar. Here are the pictures. Oh yes, Ipoh boy turns another year more mature.








Prof got a CNY hamper just two days before that contained amongst other things, that yellow dome shape cake. We thought it was a gigantic pineapple tart but it turned out to be a pumpkin filled thingy. The chocolate brownie brought us as always to cloud9.5.
Nuff said.
Happy V day everyone. Will be spending mine with the female mice at the animal house.

microbio open house

HAving an open house this Saturday and I made a poster of our lab people. I know that most people after seeing it will want to kill me. But here it is anyway.

last year's christmas lunch

We went to Oriental for lunch a few days after Christmas last year. Yeah, I know, its kinda late to post this but since I have free time today (read: all my cell culture stock contaminated) I got some time to expand.


Melt the world cafe. We were early (11:45am,) and doors only open at 12 and they have not set our table yet. So got to wait.


The table


The waiter's hand


The ambiance


Most importantly, THE FOOD!!!














The gluttons.


The glutton^n


The reflection on the ceiling


The group


The vain two.


The end.

sorry

Hi faithful readers. Sorry for the loooong absence. I have been terribly lazy/busy/sick/etc. and did not post.

Today Ad came back to lab after his holiday to some northern hemisphere region and brought back food!




This one good. Rum




This one not so good. Whisky


This one everybody liked


That person cannot have fourth rounds.





Yeah, thats my new home. And thats why these few days/weeks I did not post. Was busy with the new house reno and S&P stuff. When its done, everybody's invited! (international transport not provided).

guess

Guess what this is!

microbes and infection corrected proof

Original article

The envelope glycoprotein domain III of dengue virus serotypes 1 and 2 inhibit virus entry

J.F.L. Chin^a, J.J.H. Chu^a and M.L. Ng<sup>, a,

a</sup>Flavivirology Laboratory, Department of Microbiology, 5 Science Drive 2, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117597, Singapore

Received 28 July 2006; accepted 30 September 2006. Available online 6 December 2006.

Abstract

Dengue virus (DV) is a flavivirus and its urban transmission is maintained largely by its mosquito vectors and vertebrate host, often human. In this study, investigation was carried out on the involvement of domain III of the envelope (E) glycosylated protein of dengue virus serotypes 1 and 2 (DV-1 and DV-2 DIII) in binding to host cell surfaces, thus mediating virus entry. Domain III protein of flavivirus can also serve as an attractive target in inhibiting virus entry. The respective DV DIII proteins were expressed as soluble recombinant fusion proteins before purification through enzymatic cleavage and affinity purification. The purified recombinant DV-1 and DV-2 DIII proteins both demonstrated the ability to inhibit the entry of DV-1 and DV-2 into HepG2 cells and C6/36 mosquito cells. As such, the DV DIII protein is indeed important for the interaction with cellular receptors in both human and mosquito cells. In addition, this protein induced antibodies that completely neutralized homologous dengue serotypes although not with the same efficiency among the heterologous serotypes. This observation may be of importance when formulating a generic vaccine that is effective against all dengue virus serotypes.

Keywords: Flavivirus; Virus entry; Vaccine; Neutralizing antibodies

Thai junk food

Ed's 'friend' went to Thailand and got back this for the lab. The banana chips still my fav.

indian junk food

Bhu came back this week and brought back junk food for us all!

nepal II

Some other interesting pictures on the trail. Here's a woman processing millet.


One of the teahouses we stopped for lunch.


After lunch they just lie around enjoying the sun


The hills and mountains are all terraced up and grown with all kinds of stuff, veggies, wheat, barley, millet, mustard, etc.


Chicken wiht this weird tuft under its eyes.


kerosene heater under the table for nights when it gets really cold.


All the different agents that patronise theis outlet


Chainis?


Another kind of heater. made of mud, you burn wood in it and the heat is felt in the whole room.


Drying millet


Cleaning a chicken for dinner.


All the teahouses have similar looking menus with exactly similar things inside. Only diff is the price. It goes up as you gain altitude.


Whats in the menu you ask?


drying corn for flour in winter and seed in spring.



Buying oranges. Earlier on it was 2 rupees for one orange, then it became 5 rupees for 2 oranges. In Kathmandu, it was 10 rupees for one orange. Businessmen...