Mechanobioengineering living soft materials

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Biological tissues are fascinating soft materials, in which they continuously regenerate and reliably perform vital physiological functions (e.g., selective barrier and absorption functions ) that are virtually impossible to recapitulate using synthetic systems. The ability to generate such living materials in a reproducible way is essential for drug screening, therapeutic development, and even organ transplant. However, engineering biological tissues is challenging, as their constituents - cells - can be influenced by numerous environmental cues. Our lab is interested in understanding how the mechanical cues impact the cell behavior. Here, mechanical cues include cell-cell adhesion, cell-substrate traction, and cell-flow interaction, which are all highly nonlinear, dynamic, heterogeneous, and intertwined. To unravel the intricate relationships between these complex mechanical stimuli and cell behavior, we develop 1) instruments to impose various mechanical signaling, 2) label-free microscopy methods to visualize tissue properties, and 3) understandings in mechanobiology.