The reseasrch project is a fundamental synergy of stem cell research, soft matter elasticity, cell and molecular biology, and computational nano-mechanics. The adopted interdisciplinary approach combines statistical physics of macromolecules and polymers, entropic soft elasticity, cell biology, and variational finite element methods to build a multiscale model for study of interactions among focal adhesion, extracellular matrix, and membrane cytoskeleton.
We would like to address the following questions by using the language of precise mathematical and physical science: (1) How to explain the stem cells' abiloty for rigidity sensing and surface micro-structure sensing of, and to explain the mechanism of triggering adhesion-mediated signaling and subsequent cascade responses, and to predict the mechanosensitivity of cell in quantitative manner; (2) How to explain and predict contact-induced conformation changes in proteins and structural changes in cell cytoskeleton? (3) How to explain the self-assembly and self-dissociation of a focal-adhesion.
