Philosophiae Doctor - PhD (Bioinformatics): Recent submissions
Now showing items 21-40 of 40
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Identification of coding variants associated with familial systemic lupus erythematosus through whole exome sequencing
(University of the Western Cape, 2016)Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease characterized by the production of a wide range of autoantibodies directed against selfantigens. SLE can influence almost any organ system and ... -
Identification and ranking of pervasive secondary structures in positive sense single-stranded ribonucleic acid viral genomes
(University of the Western Cape, 2018)The plasticity of single-stranded viral genomes permits the formation of secondary structures through complementary base-pairing of their component nucleotides. Such structures have been shown to regulate a number of ... -
Computational prediction of host-pathogen protein-protein interactions
(University of the Western Cape, 2017)Supervised machine learning approaches have been applied successfully to the prediction of protein-protein interactions (PPIs) within a single organism, i.e., intra-species predictions. However, because of the absence of ... -
Computational strategies to identify, prioritize and design potential antimalarial agents from natural products
(University of the Western Cape, 2015)Introduction: There is an exigent need to develop novel antimalarial drugs in view of the mounting disease burden and emergent resistance to the presently used drugs against the malarial parasites. A large amount of natural ... -
Computational genomics approaches for kidney diseases in Africa
(University of the Western Cape, 2015)End stage renal disease (ESRD), a more severe form of kidney disease, is considered to be a complex trait that may involve multiple processes which work together on a background of a significant genetic susceptibility. ... -
Computational analysis of multilevel omics data for the elucidation of molecular mechanisms of cancer
(University of the Western Cape, 2015)Cancer is a group of diseases that arises from irreversible genomic and epigenomic alterations that result in unrestrained proliferation of abnormal cells. Detailed understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying a ... -
Computational characterisation of DNA methylomes in mycobacterium tuberculosis Beijing hyper- and hypo-virulent strains
(University of the Western Cape, 2014)Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis, is estimated to infect approximately one-third of the world’s population and is responsible for around 2 million deaths per year. The disease is endemic in ... -
Modulation of soybean and maize antioxidant activities by Caffeic acid and nitric oxide under salt stress
(University of the Western Cape, 2012)This study explores the roles of exogenously applied nitric oxide, exogenously applied caffeic acid and salt stress on the antioxidant system in cereal (exemplified by maize) and legume (using soybean as an example) plants ... -
Evolution of HIV-1 subtype C gp120 envelope sequences in the female genital tract and blood plasma during acute and chronic infection
(University of the Western Cape, 2014)Heterosexual transmission of HIV-1 via the female genital tract is the leading route of HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa. Viruses then traffic between the cervical compartment and blood ensuring pervasive infection. ... -
Genome-wide annotation of chemosensory and glutamate-gated receptors, and related genes in Glossina morsitans morsitans tsetse fly
(University of the Western Cape, 2014)Tsetse flies are the sole vectors of trypanosomes that cause nagana and sleeping sickness in animals and humans respectively in tropical Africa. Tsetse are unique: both sexes adults are exclusive blood-feeders, females are ... -
Identification and characterization of microRNAs and their putative target genes in Anopheles funestus s.s
(2013)The discovery of microRNAs (miRNAs) is one of the most exciting scientific breakthroughs in the last decade. miRNAs are short RNA molecules that do not encode proteins but instead, regulate gene expression. Over the past ... -
Development of a hepatitis C virus knowledgebase with computational prediction of functional hypothesis of therapeutic relevance
(2011)To ameliorate Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) therapeutic and diagnostic challenges requires robust intervention strategies, including approaches that leverage the plethora of rich data published in biomedical literature to gain ... -
Computational characterization of IRE-regulated genes in Glossina morsitans
(University of Western Cape, 2013)Blood feeding is a habit exhibited by many insects. Considering the devastating impact of these insects on human health, it is important to focus research on understanding the biology behind blood-feeding, disease ... -
Development and implementation of ontology-based systems for mammalian gene expression profiling
(2009)The use of ontologies in the mapping of gene expression events provides an effective and comparable method to determine the expression profile of an entire genome across a large collection of experiments derived from ... -
Development of a Hepatitis C Virus knowledgebase with computational prediction of functional hypothesis of therapeutic relevance
(University of the Western Cape, 2011)To ameliorate Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) therapeutic and diagnostic challenges requires robust intervention strategies, including approaches that leverage the plethora of rich data published in biomedical literature to gain ... -
Prediction of antimicrobial peptides using hyperparameter optimized support vector machines
(University of the Western Cape, 2011)Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) play a key role in the innate immune response. They can be ubiquitously found in a wide range of eukaryotes including mammals, amphibians, insects, plants, and protozoa. In lower organisms, ... -
Concept Based Knowledge Discovery from Biomedical Literature
(University of the Western Cape, 2009)This thesis describes and introduces novel methods for knowledge discovery and presents a software system that is able to extract information from biomedical literature, review interesting connections between various ... -
Generation of a human gene index and its application to disease candidacy
(University of the Western Cape, 2001)With easy access to technology to generate expressed sequence tags (ESTs), several groups have sequenced from thousands to several thousands of ESTs. These ESTs benefit from consolidation and organization to deliver ... -
Detection of positive selection resulting from Nevirapine treatment in longitudinal HIV-1 reverse transcriptase sequences
(University of the Western Cape, 2006)Nevirapine (NVP) is a cheap anti-retroviral drug used in poor countries worldwide, administered to pregnant women at the onset of labour to inhibit HIV enzyme reverse transcriptase. Viruses which may get transmitted to ... -
Development of a comprehensive annotation and curation framework for analysis of Glossina Morsitans Morsitans expresses sequence tags
(University of the Western Cape, 2011)This study has successfully identified transcripts differentially expressed in the salivary gland and midgut and provides candidate genes that are critical to response to parasite invasion. Furthermore, an open-source ...