Topic:  Nanomechanics of Biological Cells and Human Disease States

Abstract

This lecture will deal with select topics at the intersections of materials science and engineering, biology and human diseases by considering structure-property-function connections at the cell and molecular levels.  Two broad classes of human diseases will be examined in this context:  malaria and cancer.  In the former case, it is shown through optical tweezers experiments at the picoNewton force level that parasitization leads to significant stiffening and cytoadherence of the red blood cell.  Possible consequences for biological and physiological responses are probed.  Gene inactivation and cell biomechanics experiments designed to explore the contributions from proteins transferred from the parasite to the cell cytoskeleton are undertaken using cloned parasites with specific protein knock-outs.  Molecular-level computational simulations of cell shape evolution are also examined in the context of some hereditary blood cell disorders.  Results will also be presented to highlight very different chemomechanical pathways associated with the loss of stiffness of the human Panc-1 or mammary epithelial cancer cells and their implications for possible tumor metastasis.  The presentation will conclude with a discussion of microfluidic devices for possible disease diagnostics and drug efficacy assays.  

 

Curriculum Vitae -- Subra Suresh