Visiting lecturer: Asamoah Nkwanta

Asamoah Nkwanta is an Associate Professor of Mathematics in the Department of Mathematics at Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland. He has been working on RNA sequence problems since 1996. His main interest is using combinatorial methods to design RNA sequences for secondary structure prediction. His RNA prediction research focuses on certain lattice (or random) walks that are used in a way to code strands of RNA that would be essential for the identification of specific viral RNA molecules. He is currently working on a lattice walk model for RNA sequence prediction with applications to RNA sequences related to HIV, malaria and yellow fever. Further interests of his are in analyzing simple sequence repeat patterns in DNA sequences, as well as evaluating RNA folding rates.

Professor Nkwanta will lecture on RNA combinatorics and secondary structure prediction. He will explain how discrete mathematical biology concepts can be used to help predict more stable RNA secondary structure sequences and share information about RNA sequences associated with HIV, yellow fever, and malaria. He will also lecture on a probabilistic method to analyze repeat patterns in DNA sequences, metrics for analyzing RNA folding rates, the combinatorics of the RNA numbers, RNA Riordan arrays, and RNA base-point mutations.