Research

The environment surrounding cells is a complex milieu of chemical and mechanical signals that direct fundamental cell behaviors including adhesion, migration and signaling. The Reinhart-King Lab is studying how cells integrate multiple extracellular signals and translate them into either normal or diseased behaviors.

The core of this research is focused on understanding how adhesiveness, mechanical forces and chemical cues regulate changes in cell mechanics, migration, and tissue assembly.

Work in the Reinhart-King Laboratory uses a multidisciplinary approach, integrating principles from engineering, cell and molecular biology, biophysics, and biomaterials science, to better understand and control cell function, tissue formation, and disease progression. At a molecular level, this work involves characterizing the role of intracellular structural and signaling proteins in governing cell adhesion and tissue development. At the cellular level, the properties of the extracellular matrix environment, both chemical and mechanical, are manipulated and exploited to control cell behaviors such as growth, adhesion and migration.

At the tissue level, this work includes elucidating the properties of the extracellular matrix that foster healthy tissue formation from individual cell populations. Biophysical and biochemical techniques are employed to quantitatively characterize cell behavior in both normal and diseased states. Using Traction Force Microscopy, we were the first to quantify the forces exerted by endothelial cells on their substrate in response to both chemical and mechanical cues during cell spreading and adhesion. Our data indicate that cells can communicate mechanically through a substrate, using traction stresses to pull on their substrate and signal to adjacent cells.

The ultimate goal of our work is to determine governing parameters that can used to predict and control cell function to form new tissues or to prevent aberrant cell behavior. Knowledge gained in these areas will provide insight into treating a number of diseases including cardiovascular disease and cancer. Our lab is applying these concepts to a distinct range of problems including: the engineering of capillary networks, the investigation of fundamental mechanisms of cell migration during metastasis, and the dissection of the role of microenvironmental cues during atherosclerosis progression.