BME Seminar
Friday, January 24th, 2020
UTEB 150 at Storrs & Video conferenced to UCHC CG-079B
12:00-1:00 pm
“Work and Dissipation in the Cell Cytoskeleton”
Presented By: Michael Murrell, PhD, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Assistant Professor of Physics, and Assistant Professor in the Systems Biology Institute at Yale University
Abstract: Living cells generate and transmit mechanical forces over diverse time-scales and length-scales to determine cell and tissue shape during both homeostatic and pathological processes, from early embryonic development to cancer metastasis. These forces arise from the cell cytoskeleton, a scaffolding network of entangled protein polymers driven out-of-equilibrium by enzymes that convert chemical energy into mechanical work. However, how molecular interactions within the cytoskeleton lead to the accumulation of mechanical stresses that determine the dynamics of cell shape is unknown. Furthermore, how cellular interactions are subsequently modulated to determine the shape of the tissue is also unclear. To bridge these scales, our group in collaboration with others, uses a combination of experimental, computational and theoretical approaches. On the molecular scale, we use active gels as a framework to understand how mechanical work is produced and dissipated within the cell cytoskeleton. On the scale of cells and tissues, we abstract mechanical stresses to surface tension in a liquid film and draw analogies between the dynamics of wetting and the dynamics of simple tissues. Together, we attempt to develop comprehensive description for how cytoskeletal stresses translate to the physical behaviors of cells and tissues with significant phenotypic outcomes such as epithelial wound healing and cancer metastasis.
Biography: Dr. Murrell received a B.S. from Johns Hopkins University in Biomedical Engineering and a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Bioengineering. He pursued his postdoctoral studies jointly at the University of Chicago, and at the Institut Curie in Paris, France. Dr. Murrell's interests are understanding the mechanical principles that drive major cellular life processes through the design and engineering of novel biomimetic systems. He develops simplified and tractable experimental models of a cell’s mechanical machinery with the goal of reproducing complex cellular behavior, such as division and migration. The ‘bottom-up’ experimental models are combined with concepts from soft matter physics to gain a fundamental understanding of the influence of mechanics on cell and tissue behavior. Identifying new biological design principles may enable development of novel technologies.
For more information, contact: Biomedical Engineering at birgit.sawstrom@uconn.edu