Before any scientific question can be answered, it must be dreamed up. What happens to cause a healthy cell or tissue to change, for instance, isn’t fully understood. While much is known about chemical exposures that can lead to genetic mutation, damaged DNA, inflammation, and even cancer; what has rarely been asked is how physical stressors in the environment can cause a cell or tissue to respond and adapt. It’s a piece of the puzzle upon which future medical breakthroughs might depend.
Alison Patteson (left) and Jennifer Schwarz (right), both professors in the Department of Physics and members of the BioInspired Institute, have been awarded a four-year National Science Foundation grant from Physics of Living Systems, for a project titled Mechanical Homeostasis—an Emergent Property of the Multi-Tiered Structure of Living Cells and Tissues.