Understanding and Controlling Cell-matrix Interactions within Engineered Matrices

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

2:30 PM-4:00 PM

BIOMED Seminar

Title:
Understanding and Controlling Cell-matrix Interactions within Engineered Matrices

Speaker:
E. Thomas (Tommy) Pashuck, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Bioengineering
P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science
Lehigh University

Details:
Hydrogels are a promising class of biomaterials that can be tailored to mimic human tissues to model them in vitro and for therapeutic applications in vivo. Tuning the properties of hydrogels is often done by modifying the structure of the polymer network to modulate the viscoelastic properties, or by functionalizing the hydrogel with peptides to improve the bioactivity of the gel. Peptides have the added benefit that they are natural substrates for cell-secreted enzymes, and which enables hydrogels to be dynamically modified by the encapsulated cells.

The Pashuck Lab has developed novel approaches to study dynamic cell-matrix interactions through both the improved characterization of hydrogels during culture and by tuning the molecular structure of the gels to understand the significance of different design parameters. The goal of this work is to improve our understanding of how cell-matrix interactions guide fundamental processes including endothelial network formation and stem cell differentiation. These platforms are building towards our goal of making biomaterials that more closely recapitulate the complex environments found in native tissues.

Biosketch:
E. Thomas (Tommy) Pashuck, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at Lehigh University. He joined Lehigh following postdoctoral training on a Marie Curie Fellowship at Imperial College London and working at the New Jersey Center for Biomaterials at Rutgers University. He received his BS in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Florida and his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Northwestern University.

Contact Information

Carolyn Riley
cr63@drexel.edu