This National Science Foundation (NSF) Project Grant award under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) supports basic research to uncover the mechanisms by which mechanical forces at the protein level regulate cell mechanics and direct tissue-scale behaviors. The $616,151 award, with a project period from September 1, 2024 to August 31, 2027, will fund an interdisciplinary study leveraging molecular biology, bioengineering, materials science, and computational approaches. The research will...
This $995,498 National Science Foundation project grant supports research at the University of California, Los Angeles to advance knowledge of cellular mechanobiology and translate findings for sustainable protein production. Funded through the NSF's Engineering program (CFDA 47.041), the research aims to understand how cells sense and respond to mechanical stimuli by building a systems-level understanding of the "mechanome." Specific goals include investigating predicted mechanical...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $368,886 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant under the Engineering Program (CFDA 47.041) to Purdue University to conduct fundamental research on using snapping instabilities for designing shape-reconfigurable structures. The 4-year project, starting on March 15, 2024, aims to develop theoretical models, experimental data, simulation tools, and new design methods to enable structures that can extensively vary their shapes while...
This $314,769 Project Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation's Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) supports research that aims to advance the fundamental understanding of how cells and tissues communicate information about their mechanical environment. The award, effective from February 1, 2025 to January 31, 2030, will fund the development of new material platforms based on magnetic materials that can dynamically change local stiffness via magnetic fields. Experiments will explore how...
The National Science Foundation awarded Purdue University $509,958 under the Engineering (47.041) federal grant program for a project titled "CAREER: INVERSE MECHANICS IN SELF-SENSING MATERIALS: BASIC KNOWLEDGE, EDUCATION, AND SERVICE." Purdue will conduct research from August 15, 2023 to July 31, 2028 to advance the understanding of inverting electro-mechanical coupling in self-sensing materials. This work intends to enable quantitative full-field mechanics imaging through simple...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) provides $152,007 to the University of New Hampshire (UNH) to develop a simplified "bottom-up" approach for engineering liquid-liquid phase separation and microstructural heterogeneity in polysaccharide-based hydrogels. The project aims to leverage this novel technique to create customizable hydrogel microstructures and investigate their impact on cellular behavior,...
This $450,000 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) to Purdue University will support research to characterize the motion and orientation of non-spherical particles in viscoelastic fluids. The research will involve microfluidic experiments, simulations, and theoretical modeling to quantify the interplay between lift forces and particle orientation for different flow rates, particle geometries, fluid properties, and channel confinement....
The National Science Foundation awarded a $890,510 project grant to Virginia Commonwealth University under the Engineering federal grant program (CFDA 47.041) for research titled "BIOMECHANICS OF LEADER CELLS." The five-year award, issued February 1, 2022 with a completion date of January 31, 2027, will support research into the biomechanics of leader cells. The NSF's Engineering program seeks to improve quality of life and economic strength by fostering innovation and excellence in...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Program (CFDA 47.041) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award provides $646,451 to The Regents of the University of Colorado to study how the mechanical properties of the extracellular matrix regulate neutrophil function in inflammation. The 5-year project aims to decouple the roles of viscoelasticity and tissue stiffness in modulating the neutrophil immune response, investigate the effect of dynamic tissue stiffening, and identify...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program awarded a $377,755 Project Grant to the University of New Haven, Incorporated to support fundamental research on the mechanoregulation of collective cell migration in biomimetic microenvironments. This 3-year grant, effective from September 1, 2024 to August 31, 2027, will enable the University of New Haven to investigate how mechanical forces and biochemical factors interact to regulate collective cell migration, a crucial process in...