Latest Academic Works
Low-pressure gaseous plasma for inactivation of viruses in water
Water scarcity is becoming a greater issue worldwide due to ever-increasing anthropogenic activity. A dedicated effort is required to recover and maintain the purity of our water resources and has created an environment for developing better technologies to tackle this issue. Low-pressure gaseous plasma, consisting of a complex mixture of …
Development and employment of untargeted and targeted tools for virus detection in the frame of water-based epidemiology
Traditional methods of studying viruses are limited in their ability to detect novel pathogens, but recent advances in high-throughput sequencing (HTS) are changing that. HTS allows researchers to probe deeply into the virome of various hosts and environments, identifying known and unknown viral species. However, a targeted approach, like quantitative …
Characterization of plant viromes using different viral nucleic acids enrichment strategies and high-throughput sequencing platforms
Plant viruses are very important plant pathogens, causing economic losses by infecting cultivated plants, causing diseases, and consequently reducing crop quality and quantity. In recent years, the development of high throughput sequencing (HTS) technologies has dramatically broadened the possibilities for plant virus research and diagnostics, enabling the discovery of new …
Investigating the early molecular events following exposure of lung cells to nanoparticles using advanced optical microscopies
The potential toxicity of nanoparticles in our environment and consumer products is currently determined by costly and timely animal-based testing, which limits the rate of nanoparticle testing, causing a desperate need for alternative testing strategies. A promising alternative – mechanism-based prediction – employs a set of high-throughput cell-based tests that …
Diversity of viruses infecting tomato and weed plants in agroecosystems
Viruses, satellite viruses, viroids, virusoids, and satellite nucleic acids (herewith, referred to collectively or in part as ‘viruses’) comprise the virosphere and are perhaps the most diverse and abundant, yet still under-sampled, microbes on Earth. They are primarily regarded as pathogens or parasites of their eukaryotic or prokaryotic hosts. In …
The use of high-throughput sequencing for detection of viral sequences in complex samples from environment and industry
Metagenomics based on high throughput sequencing (HTS) has opened a new era of discovery and genomic characterization of viruses associated with a given host or environment. The search for novel viral sequences provides an excellent opportunity to improve early detection of pathogens, and to predict viral hosts and environmental reservoirs …
Inactivation of viruses in water by cold atmospheric plasma
Access to clean water is a key requirement for a good quality of life. However, due to climate change, population growth and lack of proper water treatment, the availability of clean water is in constant decline. Among the many waterborne contaminants, viruses present an increasing concern. Human waterborne viruses infect …
Phylogenomic analysis of RNA viruses in invertebrates
RNA viruses are the largest group of viruses. Among them are some of the most notorious human, animal and plant pathogens. Many insects and nematodes are vectors of plant and animal RNA viruses. The latest studies of RNA viral diversity in invertebrates have demonstrated that the Protostomia lineage represents the …
Role of Cysteine Cathepsins in the Processing, Activation and Inactivation of Perforin
Natural killer (NK) cells and cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) recognize virus-infected or malignant transformed cells and destroy them through two independent mechanisms. Apoptotic target-cell death can be triggered by the engagement of death-receptors or by the release of cytotoxic granules. Cytotoxic granules gather at the site of contact between the …