On Friday, June 5th @ 12:00PM EDT, we welcome Dr. Nandan Nerurkar from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University as he presents, "Mechanobiology of vertebrate gut morphogenesis." Following Dr. Nerurkar, we keep the momentum going with a tremendous speaker lineup!

ABOUT THE JUNE 5 WEBINAR

Mechanobiology of vertebrate gut morphogenesis

With a recent resurgent interest in the physical aspects of embryonic development, one area that remains understudied - particularly among vertebrates - is how forces in the embryo are specified by developmental signals. How do molecular cues regulate tissue-scale forces to ensure they arise at the right time and location with the necessary orientation and magnitude to shape the developing embryo into remarkably stereotyped physical patterns? We aim to address these questions using a combination of molecular and biomechanical approaches in the developing chick embryo. This seminar will cover our recent work in this general area through the study of gut development, including the physico-chemical coupling that drives collective endodermal cell movements during gut tube formation in the early embryo, and later buckling morphogenesis of intestinal loops.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Nandan Nerurkar, Assistant Professor
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University

Nandan completed his PhD at University of Pennsylvania under the mentorship of Dawn Elliott and Rob Mauck, where his thesis work focused on biomechanics and tissue engineering of orthopaedic soft tissues. Over the course of his graduate studies, Nandan's interests shifted from questions of 'can we build something to meet certain metrics of tissue function' to questions of 'why are these the metrics in the first place, and how did they come to be?'. These are in essence questions of evolutionary and developmental biology, which led Nandan to pursue a postdoc in the lab of Cliff Tabin at Harvard Medical School, where he applied his background in biomechanics to study morphogenesis of the developing embryo. Two years ago, Nandan joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University as an Assistant Professor, where his lab continues this work, focusing on mechanobiology of gastrointestinal development. Along with publications in several top journals throughout his young career, this year Nandan was awarded the prestigious NSF CAREER award in recognition of his unique vision for combining developmental and evolutionary biology with biomechanics and engineering.

ABOUT BME BREAKS

Take a break and join us every Friday at 12:00PM EDT for BME Breaks, a weekly online lecture series from global leaders in biomedical engineering research, brought to you by the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University.

RSVP at the link above!