Challenges in virology & neurodegeneration: improving experimental procedures and theoretical insights

After repeatedly finding errors in experimental data provided by collaborators, my group developed an online tool (midSIN, https://midsin.roadcake.org/) to improve estimating the concentration of infectious viruses in samples. This led to an unexpected new collaboration with researchers working to measure the concentration of aggregating fibrils in samples from patients suffering from neurodegenerative diseases such as Dementia with Lewy Body and Parkinson's. In the first part of my talk, I will introduce the basics of how infectious virions and aggregating fibril concentrations are measured experimentally, and discuss challenges in tackling these assays' limitations to improve their accuracy and sensitivity. In the second part of my talk, I will discuss the challenges we face in trying to identify the type and minimal number of experimental measurements required to predict the severity and transmission efficacy of diverse influenza viruses collected as part of pandemic surveillance efforts. I hope you will join the talk to learn of these challenges and consider contributing new ideas or approaches to overcome them.