Events for the 4th week of February
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Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Wed, Feb 21, 2024 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Konstantinos Konstantopoulos, Ph.D., William H. Schwarz Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering The Johns Hopkins University
Talk Title: Cell Mechanosensing and Prognostic Assays in Cancer
Abstract: Cell locomotion is a critical step in the process of cancer metastasis, as it enables cancerous cells dissociating from a primary tumor to navigate through interstitial tissues and ultimately colonize distant organs. Metastasizing cells migrate through three-dimensional (3D) longitudinal channel-like tracks created by various anatomical structures or generated via remodeling of extracellular matrix by cancer-associated stroma cells. This seminar will present a multidisciplinary approach, integrating bioengineering tools with molecular and cell biology techniques to understand cancer cell migration in precisely engineered microenvironments, which recapitulate in vitro the 3D longitudinal channels encountered in vivo. The plasticity of cancer cell migration will be discussed, focusing on how cells sense, adapt, and respond to different physical cues, such as confinement and extracellular fluid viscosity. Moreover, this presentation will outline how our current knowledge on the mechanisms of cell motility has led to the development of a novel microchannel assay capable of distinguishing aggressive from non-aggressive cancer cells for accurate diagnosis, prognosis and precision care of cancer patients.
Biography: Received the Diploma of Chemical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece in 1989 and the doctorate in Chemical Engineering from Rice University, Houston, Texas in 1995. After his postdoctoral training in the Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering at Rice University, he joined the faculty of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Johns Hopkins in 1997, and served as Department Chair from 2008 till 2017. He holds secondary appointments in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Oncology. He is Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES). His signature research focuses on how cells sense and respond to different physical cues. He is known for deciphering a new mechanism of tumor cell migration in confinement called the Osmotic Engine Model, for identifying extracellular fluid viscosity as a novel physical cue regulating cancer metastasis, and for developing innovative prognostic and diagnostic assays in cancer. He has also discovered key functional selectin ligands involved in tumor cell adhesion to host cells, and characterized biophysically these receptor-ligand interactions at the single-molecule level. He has published over 160 peer-reviewed articles in premier journals such as Nature, Cell, Nature Biomedical Engineering, Science Advances etc. His work has been cited ~13,500 times with an h-index of 66. Eleven of his mentees have launched successful academic careers in premier institutions, whereas another 18 have joined the government or industry and now hold leading appointments. He is currently the PI or MPI on multiple NIH R01 and CDMRP grants.
Host: Peter Wang
Location: Corwin D. Denney Research Center (DRB) - 145
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Carla Stanard
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Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Fri, Feb 23, 2024 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Peter Chung, Ph.D., Robert D. Beyer Early Career Chair in the Natural Sciences and an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Southern California
Talk Title: Polymers and Parkinsons: Elucidating Protein Function through Soft Matter Paradigms and Techniques
Abstract: Despite being unequivocally linked to Parkinson’s disease, the function of alpha-synuclein remains unclear beyond transiently binding to the lipid membrane of synaptic vesicles (organelles filled with neurotransmitters). This is due, in part, to its intrinsically disordered nature; alpha-synuclein does not fold into a globular structure and instead behaves much like a biopolymer. While precluding traditional characterization methods, this makes alpha-synuclein incredibly amenable to investigation via a polymer physics framework. First, through purpose-designed membrane nanoparticles and advanced synchrotron X-ray methods I will demonstrate that alpha-synuclein binds to and collectively works to sterically-stabilize membrane surfaces, a biological manifestation of polyelectrolyte-stabilized colloids. I will then reconcile observed transient binding to synaptic vesicles by establishing that alpha-synuclein preferentially binds to osmotically-stressed membranes (a proxy for neurotransmitter-filled synaptic vesicles), a newly discovered biophysical function by which alpha-synuclein interrogates organelle contents. Utilizing these insights, I will contextualize alpha-synuclein as a guidepost that spatiotemporally directs non-equilibrium
Biography: Peter Chung is the Robert D. Beyer Early Career Chair in the Natural Sciences and an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Southern California. His research focuses on the intersection of intrinsically disordered proteins (especially those unequivocally linked to neurodegenerative disease) and soft matter physics, with the hope of understanding emergent phenomena associated with these proteins and repurposing them for basic science research and novel therapeutic approaches. Previously he was a Kadanoff-Rice Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Chicago and earned his PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara
Host: Eunji Chung
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 100 B
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Carla Stanard