Biology is commonly described in terms of specific genes and chemical reactions – transcription, translation – and cells as sacs filled with DNA. But cells are materials and the physical properties of cells are critical for many physiological functions: how cells deform to circulate through the body; how cells resist mechanical stresses – like stretching or squeezing – is important for homeostasis, and also critical in many diseases where cells have altered physical properties.

In the Rowat lab we think about how tissues and cells sense and respond to external cues in terms of cells as materials: how do cells maintain their physical properties and regulate them in response to external cues?

To address this question we have three main research goals:

• MEASURE: We are developing new mechanotyping technologies, such as self-assembling scaffolds that have tunable mechanics and topology as well as a deformability screening platform – we recently tested thousands of small molecules and found compounds that make cancer cells stiffer and less invasive; this also enables us to develop systems-level knowledge of the ‘mechanome’.


• UNDERSTAND: We are defining the molecules and pathways that regulate cellular mechanotype. For example, we discovered that soluble stress hormones activate a pathway that causes cancer cells to increases the forces they use to pull on their surrounding matrix, which makes them invade more quickly. Knowing the molecules that are involved is an important first step towards intervening to stop cancer cells from spreading.


• TRANSLATE: We are harnessing mechanobiology for translation to applications from cancer to cellular agriculture. In addition to molecules we have identified to stop cancer cell invasion, we are also applying our knowledge to tumors as 3D materials. For example, modulating cellular force generation can change tumor porosity, and ultimately increase the accessibility to chemotherapy drugs. While cancer is a main focus of our work, our approaches can be broadly applied across cell types, and we have also investigated cell physical properties in the context of immune cells to cardiac regeneration to neurological movement disorders such as dystonia to cultured meat.