News

Nikita Sivakumar – Global Autoimmune Institute Scholar
1st Year Scholar, PhD candidate

Biomedical Engineering, Computational Medicine
Johns Hopkins University

Research: 
My research aims to develop a computational model using machine learning and 3D time-lapse images to understand how distinct motility behaviors of B- and T-cells in mouse lymph nodes contribute to their interactions during immune responses to infection and vaccination.

How Will Your Research Benefit Society?
Our adaptive immune response plays a central role in fighting infection and responding to vaccinations that prevent disease. My research will uncover how the behaviors of two specialized immune cells, known as B-cells and T-cells, enable B-cell—T-cell interactions within lymph nodes during the adaptive immune response. These B-cell—T-cell interactions generate antibodies that can bind and eliminate foreign bodies with high affinity during infection or vaccination.

Using experimental methods alone to systematically assess how cell motility and organization behaviors drive cell-cell interactions is challenging, because we cannot precisely perturb each of these variables to quantify their effect. To close this gap, I have built and validated a computational model that can simulate these cellular behaviors and directly predict how they influence cell-cell interactions. By pinpointing how specific B- and T-cell behaviors contribute to disease, my model can then inform the design of targeted interventions (therapies) to improve these disorders. Our computational platform is also versatile and can be adapted to study dynamic cellular systems beyond the immune system, such as cancer metastasis or wound-healing.

How Will an ARCS Award Benefit Your Research?
An ARCS award will provide me with dedicated funding to get targeted feedback that can help validate my computational model and encourage its use across a wide variety of scientists. It will also provide me with support to travel to work directly with my collaborators at other institutions that generate state-of-the-art imaging data used to build and validate our computational models. In addition, an ARCS award would also enable me to present at more scientific conferences and receive meaningful feedback on my work from a broader range of audiences.

Career Objectives: 
My long-term career goal is to lead a laboratory that builds and validates computational models to elucidate molecular and cellular mechanisms of disease. Mentoring students and teaching courses based on my research have been the most fulfilling parts of my PhD. A career in academia is particularly appealing to me because of the opportunity to combine my passions for scientific research and mentorship.