Speaker: Elise A. Corbin, Assistant Professor, BME & MSE, University of Delaware

Title: Adaptations of cells and tissues to spatiotemporally dynamic mechanical environments

Abstract
Cells engage in a continuous and dynamic interplay with their surroundings. Individual cells sense their environment with remarkable precision and rapidly respond to variations in their mechanical environment including topography, stiffness, and stretching. These mechanical effects ultimately inform organ functions as cells act in concert as tissues. While it is now well-accepted that biomechanical stimuli profoundly influence cellular morphology and function, much of the foundational research uses static or isolated effects and the direction and timescale of these mechanical effects on cellular responses and collective emergent behavior is understudied. We are driven by the critical idea that dynamic mechanical behavior of cells and tissues holds important keys to understanding normal and abnormal physiology. Here, I will discuss how we study cell and tissue emergent behavior in space and time using magnetorheological elastomers (MREs). The unique advantage of MREs is their ability to rapidly and reversibly stiffen or soften with the application of a magnetic field. Our novel ultrasoft MREs can rapidly and reversibly change stiffness across two orders of magnitude, making it ideal for studying a wide range of biological tissues, processes, and diseases from liver (5 kPa) to near cartilage (300 kPa). Tools to examine how time-varying mechanical stimuli drive physiological and pathological processes can unlock the next level of mechanobiological insight.