{"248021":{"#nid":"248021","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Proposal - Tom Bongiorno","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECell Stiffness as an Indicator of Stem Cell State and its Applications to High-Throughput Purification\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAdvisor\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ETodd Sulchek, PhD\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECommittee\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWilbur Lam, MD, PhD\u003Cbr \/\u003ETodd McDevitt, PhD\u003Cbr \/\u003EJohn McDonald, PhD\u003Cbr \/\u003EPaula Vertino, PhD (Emory University)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMesenchymal and embryonic stem cells hold great potential in tissue engineering and patient-specific cell therapy, but the lack of phenotype-specific molecular markers hinders purification of target cell types for safe and efficient therapeutic technologies.\u0026nbsp; Cancer stem cells, a rare subset of tumor cells that may be responsible for tumor relapse after chemotherapy, are difficult to purify for biological characterization and future chemotherapeutic improvement.\u0026nbsp; Utilization of cell mechanical properties may represent a novel approach to identify and purify target cells, such as mesenchymal or embryonic stem cell-derived cells or cancer stem cells, even though appropriate phenotypic biomarkers are not well established.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr \/\u003EAlthough it has been established that cellular stiffness can change as a stem cell differentiates, the precise relationship between cell mechanics and other phenotypic properties remains unclear.\u0026nbsp; Single-cell analysis will be employed to determine how changes in cell stiffness correlate with changes in molecular biomarkers during differentiation.\u0026nbsp; Secondly, microfluidic technology will be utilized to enrich target cell types based on their mechanical properties.\u0026nbsp; Revelation of additional differentiation indicators, such as cell stiffness, can improve identification and collection of starting cell populations, with applications to stem cell-based therapies and tissue engineering.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Cell Stiffness as an Indicator of Stem Cell State and its Applications to High-Throughput Purification"}],"uid":"27349","created_gmt":"2013-10-22 14:53:13","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 02:05:26","author":"Floyd Wood","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2013-11-04T13:30:00-05:00","event_time_end":"2013-11-04T15:30:00-05:00","event_time_end_last":"2013-11-04T15:30:00-05:00","gmt_time_start":"2013-11-04 18:30:00","gmt_time_end":"2013-11-04 20:30:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2013-11-04 20:30:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"65448","name":"Bioengineering Graduate Program"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"6178","name":"BIOE"},{"id":"569","name":"bioengineering"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1791","name":"Student sponsored"}],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}