Abstract
Glioblastoma is a highly aggressive, invasive disease with poor prognosis despite standard of care treatments. In this seminar I will discuss our progress in understanding the mechanics of cancer cell migration in the brain, as well as the potential for therapeutic targeting. An area of emerging therapy is the use of engineered immune cells, such as T cells, which must be able to navigate the brain environment to perform their antitumoral activity, and so I will present our recent efforts to understand the mechanics of T cell migration in brain tissue as well.
About the Speaker
David Odde is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Minnesota. Trained as a chemical engineer at the University of Minnesota and Rutgers University, Odde joined the newly created Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Minnesota in 1999 where he is a professor and Co-Director of the Therapy Modeling & Design Center. In his research, Odde’s group builds computer models of cellular and molecular self-assembly and force-generation-dissipation dynamics, and tests the models experimentally using digital microscopic imaging of living cells ex vivo and in engineered microenvironments. His group seeks to bring an engineering approach that uses physics-based modeling and analysis to understand, predict, and control disease outcomes (oddelab.umn.edu). Dr. Odde is an elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering (IAMBE), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and was the Director of the Physical Sciences in Oncology Center NCI U54 at the University of Minnesota (psoc.umn.edu), which was focused on modeling the mechanics of cancer cell migration in biologically relevant contexts.
Host: Professor Bumsoo Han