2021 Graduate Studies Entrance Award
Project title: Assessing the role of RIPLET in duck RIG-I activation
How would you describe your research project to someone without a scientific background?
Ducks are carry influenza viruses and are often infected with them. However, ducks rarely develop disease. This special relationship with viruses has been attributed to a receptor called RIG-I. I am investigating if the enzyme RIPLET is involved in RIG-I activation in ducks.
What impact do you hope this project makes once completed?
The activation of RIG-I remains unclear and proposed mechanisms are controversial. Therefore, with this study, we aim to expand our understanding of this fundamental step.
How has the support from Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology helped you?
Members of the Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology often provide lectures and are directly involved in our education.
What first attracted you to science?
The nature and wildlife documentary series with Steve Irwin.
What has been the greatest lesson you have learned while doing your research?
Keep myself positive when experiments are not working.
If you could invite anyone — alive or dead, real or fictional — to dinner, who would it be? Why?
Ruslan Medzhitov a Professor of Immunobiology at Yale School of Medicine and a great scientist from Uzbekistan. He lived in the same city I lived in and went to the same university I did back in Uzbekistan.
What is one thing you cannot live without?
Potato chips.