FY24 Student Seed Grant Winners
Congratulations to our FY24 Student Seed Grant Award winners!
Each of the following novel research projects has been granted up to $5,000 to support innovative research in the field of mechanobiology.
Mechanical properties of human lung collagen fibers: implications for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Student PI: Yuqing (Celeste) Deng
Faculty Labs: Bela Suki and Michael Smith
PROJECT SUMMARY:
This project focuses on the role of collagen fibers in the lungs, specifically in the context of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Collagen fibers are critical for maintaining lung functionality and integrity and their weakening may contribute to COPD-related lung damage.
The study involves isolating individual collagen fibers from healthy and COPD human lung tissue. These fibers will undergo mechanical testing to assess their mechanical properties, while advanced imaging techniques will be used to visualize their microscopic structure.
Preliminary data suggests that collagen fibers are mechanically weaker due to the action of collagenases, which are upregulated in COPD. These enzymes alter the fiber structure, making them softer.
The project aims to improve our understanding of individual collagen fiber mechanics in the lung, potentially offering insights into COPD progression and treatment. Led by Drs. Suki, Bartolak- Suki, and Smith, this research is a vital component of graduate student Yuqing Deng’s PhD thesis.
Curating and disseminating image-based datasets of engineered cardiac microbundles
Student PIs: Hiba Kobeissi and Xining Gao
Faculty Labs: Emma Lejeune and Chris Chen
PROJECT SUMMARY:
Globally, heart disease is the most common cause of death among adults. And since human cardiac tissue does not regenerate, any damage to the heart muscle is irreversible. Human induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) offer promising in-vitro platforms to understand the disease and eventually develop viable treatments. As several researchers work on creating mature functional cardiac microtissues in their labs, other researchers are focused on creating tools that can provide fast and reliable feedback to assess the characteristics and functional maturity of these tissues from imaging data. To achieve this, researchers need access to a large number of images/videos that is currently not readily available. To facilitate the development and optimization of these tools, we aim to collect and publish a dataset of approximately 2,000 examples of cardiac microbundle image-based data.
Defining the mechanical properties of the oral tumor microenvironment in aged tissues
Student PI: Anthony Spinella
Faculty Lab: Bob Varelas
PROJECT SUMMARY:
Head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC), in particular, oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), confer significant morbidity and mortality, poor patient outcomes that are associated with older age. Despite this, most preclinical pharmaceutical treatment studies focus on outcomes in young animals, and this discordance may underlie the limited efficacy of current treatments for OSCC. We propose to test how aging impacts OSCC tissue mechanics using a syngeneic orthotopic tongue isograft model of OSCC. Our study will provide a comprehensive characterization of age-associated mechanical properties in oral tissue and tumors that may underly the pro- tumorigenic properties observed in aged oral tissue, providing insight as to potential new avenues for therapeutic intervention that will improve clinical outcomes for patients.