Cell & Nuclear Biomechanics

This area brings together the lab’s long-running work on mechanotransduction, cytoskeletal mechanics, and nuclear-envelope biology. The central question is how forces applied at the cell surface are transmitted, transformed, and interpreted across the cell-nucleus interface.

From focal adhesions to force transmission

One major thread of the lab’s legacy research examined integrin-mediated focal adhesions and the force-sensitive proteins that connect the extracellular matrix to the cytoskeleton. That work asked how force-induced conformational changes in adhesion proteins can alter binding, signaling, and structural reinforcement, and how those molecular events scale up into mechanochemical control of cell behavior.

Related work also extended into cytoskeletal organization and axonal mechanics, including actin cross-linking, microtubule bundle behavior, and mechanically induced reorganization of intracellular structures. Together, these studies established a mechanics-first view of how load-bearing cellular systems adapt under stress.

Nuclear envelope systems

The lab’s current nuclear-biomechanics framing grows directly out of that earlier mechanotransduction program. We study the inner and outer nuclear membranes, SUN-KASH complexes, and related nuclear-envelope systems that physically connect the cytoskeleton to the nucleus.

These systems matter because they influence nuclear positioning, structural integrity, chromatin organization, and the way cells couple force transmission to gene regulation. The research area therefore spans both structural questions and dynamic transport or signaling questions at the cell-nucleus boundary.

Nucleocytoplasmic transport and mechanochemistry

Another major legacy thread focused on the nuclear pore complex and transport across the nuclear envelope. Using finite-element, coarse-grained, Brownian-dynamics, molecular-dynamics, and agent-based methods, the lab studied the geometry, mechanics, and dynamics of the nuclear pore complex as a force-sensitive transport gateway.

That work connected pore architecture, cargo traffic, mRNA export, and quality control to broader mechanobiology questions, and it continues to inform how the lab thinks about coupled structure-function problems at the nuclear envelope.

Current framing

Today this area includes molecular simulation, structural biology, and mechanobiology of proteins and complexes that transmit force across the nuclear envelope or regulate transport through it. Representative work can be found in the publications archive, and the embedded Mol* structure above offers one example of the structural systems that motivate this program.

Interactive structure

SUN-KASH complex

Explore the SUN-KASH complex directly in the page with the lab's embedded Mol* viewer.