QUANTITATIVE LIFE SCIENCES GUEST SEMINAR - Thursday, 27 June 11h00

[Quantitative Life Sciences]

QLS Guest Seminar - Thursday, 27 June at 11:00
ICTP, Central Area, 2nd floor, SISSA Building, via Beirut 2


Speaker: Mohammad Reza Ejtehadi, Department of Physics, Sharif 
University of Technology, Tehran, Iran


Title: Mechanical response of cells to substrate topography

Abstract:
Cells sense and respond to topographical, chemical, and mechanical 
characteristics of their substrate. Engineered substrates are 
increasingly being developed that exploit these physical attributes to 
direct cell responses and therefore control cell behavior toward desired 
applications.

There are very few methods available for robust and accurate modeling 
that can predict cell deformations and force propagations along the cell 
media. Here, we developed a unifying computational framework to create a 
multi-component cell model to predict cell behavior. The model which we 
call it “virtual cell model” has the capability to predict changes in 
whole cell and its nucleus characteristics [1]. The changes in shape and 
elongation of the membranes, force distribution, and chromatin contact 
map are predicted on a range of substrates.

Modeling data are correlated with cell culture experimental outcomes in 
order to confirm the applicability of the model and demonstrating the 
ability to reflect the qualitative behavior of mesenchymal stem cells [1,2].

Here we show controlled cell migration is possible just by proper design 
of the substrate.

References:

[1] ACS Nano, 2017, 11 (9), pp 9084–9092, DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.7b03732

[2] Adv. Funct. Mater. 2018, 1707378, DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201707378

Everyone interested is most welcome to attend!

Indico web page:http://indico.ictp.it/event/8992/

-- 
Erica Sarnataro
Group Secretary
Quantitative Life Sciences
The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP)
Trieste,  Italy
Tel. +39-040-2240623
www.ictp.it/research/qls.aspx
e-mail: qls at ictp.it