Haogang Cai
New York University, NY·Biomedical Engineering
Cells constantly sense the physical world around them: how stiff a surface is, how far apart signaling molecules sit, how hard they are pulled. These mechanical and spatial cues help decide whether a cell grows, moves or switches on.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Biophysics
Microbiology & Immunology
- Topics
mechanobiology
cell-material interfaces
nanotechnology
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Determine what drives spatial effects in receptor clustering and how mechanical force shapes them, using nanoengineered surfaces that place signaling molecules with single-molecule precision.
- Investigate how integrins, receptors that anchor fibroblasts to the extracellular matrix, cluster in relation to cell contractility and how they interact with growth factor receptors.
- Test how force sensing and spatial sensing together trigger T cell receptor clustering, and how activating and inhibitory receptors cluster together, using artificial cell surfaces.
- Apply artificial extracellular matrix and artificial cell surfaces with soft, dynamic 3D ligand patterns to direct cell functions for in vitro cell engineering and manufacturing.
More about the research
Yet much of what happens between the scale of single molecules and whole cells is unknown, partly because it is hard to place different signaling molecules with nanometer precision and vary several cues independently. The project combines nanofabrication with synthetic biology to build "smart" artificial cell interfaces that can position multiple types of molecules precisely. These tools will be used to ask how receptor arrangement controls cell behavior, and then to steer that behavior.
Why it matters
Knowing how receptor spacing and force control cell signaling could guide better ways to grow and engineer cells, such as T cells, for therapy. The artificial cell interfaces could also be adapted to other systems and may inform new diagnostic and therapeutic methods.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Ovijit Chaudhuri
Stanford University, CA·Biomedical Engineering
Determine the biophysical mechanisms by which hydrogel viscoelasticity, stiffness and adhesiveness affect division of fibroblasts, epithelial cells and mesenchymal stem cells, using alginate hydrogels with independently tunable properties.
Claudia Loebel
University of Pennsylvania, PA·Biomedical Engineering
Develop new chemistries to change the physical properties of the nascent extracellular matrix in place, inside engineered hydrogels, to control stem and progenitor cell differentiation in 3D cultures.
Vivek Shenoy
University of Pennsylvania, PA·Biomedical Engineering
Characterize and engineer proteins and nanostructures that respond to piconewton forces and nanometer displacements, to build mechano-biological reagents and materials.
The school
New York University: 72 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 540 research doctorates a year.
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