Abstract
Mechanical forces are fundamental to life — shaping how cells grow, specialize, and adapt to their environment. Nowhere is this more dramatic than in skeletal muscle, a tissue that responds to load, injury, and spaceflight with massive structural and functional remodeling. Yet while muscle’s mechanical behavior has been studied for decades at the macroscopic and cell level, the inner mechanics of the cell nucleus — and how they govern muscle function — remain largely unexplored. In this talk, I will present a body of work that bridges multiscale mechanics, advanced imaging, and mechanobiological regulation to ask a fundamental question: How do forces shape the genome? I will first introduce an imaging platform we developed, which maps mechanical strain transfer from tissue to nucleus in live animals and reveals how mechanical cues alter chromatin structure via epigenetic regulations. I will then show how disruptions in nuclear mechanics — such as during disuse, injury, or aging — lead to a collapse in gene regulation that drives muscle atrophy. Finally, I will describe emerging work aimed at reversing this collapse through reprogramming the genome's mechanical responsiveness using precision tools. Together, these studies offer a new perspective on muscle as a mechanosensitive system and highlight how engineering principles can help us understand — and eventually restore — cellular plasticity in aging, disease, and even spaceflight.
About the Speaker
Dr. Soham Ghosh is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Cell and Molecular Biology at Colorado State University. He directs the Cellular Engineering and Mechanobiology lab where his group’s research bridges mechanics with biology, with a particular focus on how physical forces shape genome function with applications in skeletal muscle function, stem cell manufacturing and specialization, cancer cell response to drugs, and cell migration. Ghosh is a recipient of several awards including NSF CAREER award and ASME Rising Star Award. He is highly active in the ASME community including organization workshops and conferences for the ASME Bioengineering division.
Host: Professor Bumsoo Han