Mechanics and Computation / View source

for The Little Cell That Could Tug: Traction Forces, Intercellular Forces, and Mechanotransduction at the Cell-Matrix and Cell-Cell Interface

=Nate Sniadecki, Ph.D.=
===October 20, 2011===

"The Little Cell That Could Tug: Traction Forces, Intercellular Forces, and Mechanotransduction at the Cell-Matrix and Cell-Cell Interface."

Forces are essential for a cell’s ability to adhere, migrate, or contract.  These forces are regulated by interactions between actin, myosin, and focal adhesion proteins, but mechanical factors such as stiffness, cell shape, adhesion area, and external stresses influence a cell’s ability to generate force.  It has been difficult to characterize how cells sense and respond to mechanical factors because of shortcomings in the current techniques to control the cellular microenvironment.  I will present the engineering approaches my lab uses to study cellular forces in response to mechanical factors.  We focus on the mechanics of cells in the cardiovascular system and are specifically interested in the role that mechanical factors play in atherosclerosis and hemostasis.  We use 1) arrays of micro- or nanoscale cantilever posts to measure cellular forces, 2) engineered system to control the mechanical forces acting on cells, and 3) computational approaches for image analysis and cell mechanics models.  
In my talk, I will highlight our recent work on how applied forces can regulate cytoskeletal tension through mechanotransduction.  In multicellular structures like the endothelium, changes in cytoskeletal tension in individual cells affects the tugging force between cells.  This tugging force, in turn, can affect the maintenance of the cell-cell contacts. Together these engineering approaches help advance a pathway towards understanding how cells operate in a physical world and how detection of mechanical changes can be early indicators of pathological conditions.


Short Bio: 

Prof. Sniadecki received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame and his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland with Prof. Don DeVoe.  He was a NIH NRSA post-doctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University and a Hartwell Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania with Prof. Chris Chen. In 2007, he joined the University of Washington as an Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering.  Dr. Sniadecki is a recipient of the NSF CAREER award in 2009 and the DARPA Young Faculty Award in 2011. His work is on cell mechanics, mechanotransduction, and BioMEMS devices.

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