Ongoing Research Projects
Mechanobiology of the Endothelium under Clinically Relevant Mechanical Stimuli (Project Lead by Giulia Garofali, Placido Andrea Grillo)
The endothelium is the innermost layer of the vascular wall, directly exposed to the bloodstream. This tissue plays several vital roles ... Read Project Details
Centrifugal Draining Tests for Permeability Determination (Project Lead by Gabriel Pulver)
The ability of a material to allow liquid flow, often referred to as the
permeability, is a highly relevant material parameter for the mechanical
properties of skin, for instance, governing its ... Read Project Details
The Influence of the Mechanical Niche and Ageing in Endothelial Cells on Glycocalyx Expression (Project Lead by Flurina Schuhmacher)
This project explores how substrate stiffness and cellular aging influence the expression of the endothelial glycocalyx (GCX), a carbohydrate-rich, hair-like layer that coats the luminal surface ... Read Project Details
Computational Modelling of Mechanically Induced Cellular Signalling in Endothelial to Mesenchymal (Project Lead by Flurina Schuhmacher)
Atherosclerosis is a chronic, systemic inflammatory disease and remains the leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide. While regions of altered wall shear stress ... Read Project Details
Mechanical Characterization of Soft Fibrous Materials on a Cellular Length Scale (Project Lead by Paula Cameron)
Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a widely used tool in mechanobiology that can be used to measure the mechanical properties of tissues on the cellular length scale. While ubiquitous across ... Read Project Details
The Response of Dermal Cells to the Mechanome (Project Lead by Daniela Kromer)
This project aims to study the mechanoresponsive characteristics of skin cells. To treat skin diseases, mechanotherapies are currently developed which exploit the skin’s inherent properties ... Read Project Details
Improved Understanding of Skin Biomechanics (Project Lead by Gabriel Pulver)
This project aims to improve our understanding of the mechanical behaviour of human skin. Using novel experiments combined with finite element-based inverse analysis ... Read Project Details
Computational and Experimental Analysis of the Structure and Mechanics of Collagen Hydrogels (Project Lead by Kim Busenhart)
The project aims to gain further insights into the complex mechanical behavior of soft collagenous tissues across different length scales. It combines computational work with experiments ... Read Project Details
A Computational Model of the Cytoskeletal Network of Endothelial Cell Layers (Project Lead by Raphael Jakob)
The mechanical state of deformation as well as forces inside cells and at their boundaries play an important role for cell fate. Processes such as cell movement on a substrate ... Read Project Details
Conductive Skin (Project Lead by Dr. Andreas Kourouklis)
An increasing number of heart failure (HF) patients receive left ventricular-assisted devices (LVAD) to repair physiological flow in the cardiac tissue. Currently, the high amount of power required ... Read Project Details