Cell and Matrix Mechanics (PDF)

Roland Kaunas is an associate professor of biomedical engineering and the director of the Cell Mechanobiology Laboratory at Texas A&M University. He earned his BS in chemical engineering at the University of Wisconsin, his MS in biomedical engineering at Northwestern University, and his PhD in bioengineering from the University of California, San Diego. He joined the faculty at Texas A&M in 2005. His research focuses on experimental and computational modeling of cell reorganization and mechanotransduction in response to matrix stretching, fluid shear stress mechanotransduction in sprouting angiogenesis, and the development of collagen-based scaffolds for adult stem cell delivery for osteoregenerative therapies.

Assaf Zemel is a senior lecturer of theoretical biophysics and head of theoretical biophysics laboratory at the Institute of Dental Sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is also affiliated with the Fritz Haber Research Center for Molecular Dynamics at the Center for Bioengineering of the Hebrew University. Assaf earned his PhD in theoretical chemistry from the Hebrew University. He then shifted to the field of cell mechanics for his postdoctoral research. His current research focuses on understanding the physical mechanisms underlying the morphology, dynamics and internal structure of cells, and the mechanics of cell-cell interactions and morphogenesis.