Date: Wednesday, January 29, 2003
Time: 4:00 pm
Location: NSH 118
(Refreshments: 3:30 pm NSH 284)

Speaker: Dr. Gabor Forgacs

From: University of Missouri

Title: Mechanical properties of cells and tissues and their biological relevance

Abstract:
The physical properties of tissues range from solid (bone) to liquid (blood). In many instances these properties are trivially correlated with the tissue's biological function (bones have to bear load, blood has to flow), but in other cases the correlation is not that obvious. It has recently been recognized that biomechanics has much broader significance than thought earlier: it controls embryonic morphogenesis (the appearance of forms and shapes) and forms the basis of tissue engineering. The present talk is intended as an introduction into biomechanics through specific examples. It first presents experimental evidence for the liquid (or viscoelastic) nature of embryonic tissues and discusses the methods for their measurements. Next, tissue physical properties are tied to those of the building blocks (cells and the surrounding extracellular matrix) and again special techniques for their experimental determination are outlined. Examples of how particular cell and tissue physical parameters provide biologically relevant information will be used throughout the talk. Finally, the measured physical quantities will be employed to build a model of vascular tube formation and the model's predictions will be compared with the experimental realization of the same process.