This National Science Foundation (NSF) Project Grant under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) awarded $285,292 to New Mexico State University (NMSU) to establish a multiscale mechanistic framework for understanding how the human body regulates digestion and absorption in the small intestine. The key objectives are to 1) uncover the mechanisms of mixing, transport, and breakdown of food particles, enzymes, and nutrients in intestinal fluids, and 2) identify the impact of these mixing and...
This $354,066 federal Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) will support the development of a smart and connected robotic system for comprehensive diagnosis of abnormal tissues in the abdominal cavity. The award will fund research across three main thrusts: 1) integrating a multimodal instrument with balloon-based ultrasound and Raman spectroscopy capabilities to detect, classify, and stage tissue; 2) developing a tendon-driven continuum...
This federal Project Grant award from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), under the Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research program (CFDA 93.865), provides $598,583 to North Carolina State University to conduct research on modeling the curvature of the stomach. The research aims to understand the interdependent left-right asymmetries in the endoderm, mesoderm, and extracellular matrix that contribute to proper stomach curvature. The project will...
This $285,570 federal Project Grant award was made by the National Science Foundation's Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) to the University of Vermont & State Agricultural College. The grant supports research studying living tissues as new types of adaptive materials. The project aims to investigate how cellular adaptive responses to the environment influence the larger-scale behavior of tissues, creating a link between cellular biology and material properties. The research will explore...
This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) provides $719,638 to Cornell University to conduct fundamental research on the nanomechanics of bacterial adhesion and growth on healthy and diseased human gut mucus. The research aims to determine how differences in the molecular structures of healthy and diseased gut mucus impact bacterial adhesion and biofilm formation. The project will use computational modeling and simulations to obtain...
This $502,203 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) funds research at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro to advance understanding of gastrointestinal tract variation in small mammals inhabiting seasonal environments in the Appalachian Mountains. Over three years, the university will conduct seasonal field collections of small mammals at three National Ecological Observatory Network sites. Researchers will generate a...
This $487,795 award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering grant program (CFDA 47.041) supports Arizona State University in developing innovative ex vivo models of the tumor microenvironment (TME). The project aims to mechanistically understand how biophysical cues and signaling between stromal and immune cells contribute to the transition of tumor cells into an invasive phenotype, as well as explore how stromal cell function induces pathway signatures in tumor cells leading to...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation award provides $199,824 to Western Carolina University from January 1, 2024 to December 31, 2025 to conduct fundamental research on how stress-induced histomorphogenesis affects long-term leaching from implanted medical devices using phase field models. The research aims to develop computer simulations that can more accurately capture the impact of tissue changes near implanted devices on...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) Project Grant award of $612,379 supports research on the mechanics of soft, multiphase architected materials. The award recipient, Washington State University, will investigate the effects of solid-liquid phase interactions and geometric arrangement on the mechanical properties of these materials, which have potential applications in biomedical, healthcare, and soft robotics. The research aims to develop a nonlinear...
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...