Apoptosis is the most common and well-defined form of programmed cell death. It is a process that is essential to ensure normal embryonic development, immune functions and tissue homeostasis through the elimination of unnecessary or damaged organelles. On the other hand, autophagy has been described as a cell survival mechanism as well as a cell death execution pathway. Through the use of a novel compound C1, which is a strong inducer of Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS), biologists have discovered that these two processes can be simultaneously induced through the activation of the members of the MAP kinase family, ERK and JNK. This suggests that ROS may be an upstream effector mechanism in both autophagy and apoptotic cell death pathway.

Currently, we are in the process of building a computational model for the Apoptosis/Autophagy pathways. This work is being done in collaboration with ROS biology & Apoptosis Group, Department of Physiology, NUS, lead by Prof. Shazib Pervaiz.