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Mechanical force has emerged as a critical component of all biological systems, providing mechanisms to sculpt plants and animals during morphogenesis, to enable cell migration, polarization, proliferation, and differentiation in response to physical changes in the environment, and to modulate the function of single molecules. Thus, mechanics permeates all of biology, and studies of genetics and biochemistry alone cannot explain how cells function or how tissues and organisms are formed. In this exciting field of mechanobiology, theory and modeling continue to shape our comprehension of new mechanisms as they emerge. Our group strives to develop novel theoretical models and computational tools to investigate and understand the driving forces for cellular behavior and activity. In particular, we focus on active cytoskeletal remodeling and contractility, cell energetics, nuclear deformation and mechanics, and force transduction through cell-substrate and cell-cell adhesion.

Relevant contributions and publications

F. Alisafaei, D. S. Jokhun, G. V. Shivashankar, V. B. Shenoy
Regulation of Nuclear Architecture, Mechanics and Nucleo-cytoplasmic Shuttling of Epigenetic Factors by Cell Geometric Constraints
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, 116(27): 13200-13209, 2019

Z. Gong, S. E. Szczesny, S. R. Caliari, E. E. Charrier, O. Chaudhuri, X. Cao, Y. Lin, R. L. Mauck, P. A. Janmey, J. A. Burdick, and V. B. Shenoy
Matching Material and Cellular Timescales Maximizes Cell Spreading on Viscoelastic Substrates
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, 115(12): E2686-E2695, 2018

H. Ahmadzadeh, M. R. Webster, R. Behera, A. M. Jimenez Valencia, D. Wirtz, A. T. Weeraratna, and V. B. Shenoy
Modeling the Two-way Feedback Between Contractility and Matrix Realignment Reveals a Non-linear Mode of Cancer Cell Invasion
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, 114(9): E1617-E1626, 2017

V. B. Shenoy, H. Wang and X. Wang
A chemo-mechanical free-energy-based approach to model durotaxis and extracellular stiffness-dependent contraction and polarization of cells
JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY INTERFACE (FOCUS), 6: 20150067, 2015