The Cancer Center at Illinois' Cancer Discovery Platforms Bridging the Engineering-Biology Continuum (CDP) Program meeting will be a presentation by Deborah Leckband, Professor, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Department of Chemistry on her work Cadherins and Force Transductions.
Prof. Leckband will discuss the ongoing work with Dr. Valerie Weaver, the Director of the Center for Bioengineering and Tissue Regeneration in the Department of Surgery at the Univesity of California (San Francisco). This current project focuses on E-cadherin regulation of EGFR signaling and the influence of mechanics on the interaction. The group is studying several E- and EGFR mutants linked to diffuse gastric cancer and glioblastoma in and effort to study how tissue stiffness and intercellular force transduction cooperate to increase EGFR signaling, cell proliferation, and migration. The presenter will discuss how the stiffness of breast tumors alters signaling and leads to malignant transformation.
