Inspire ME
Join us for a special guest speaker!
What forces tell cells exactly how to develop?
October 28, 2021 – 11:00 – Noon in MEC 106
Musculoskeletal tissues, including skeletal muscle and tendon, develop in a mechanically active environment, within which differentiating cells are subjected to various mechanical signals. Mechanical cues are necessary for musculoskeletal tissue formation from stem cell precursors. However, the specific impact of mechanical forces on stem cells is poorly understood. Utilizing both cellular and animal models of muscle and tendon development, this seminar explores how mechanical cues impact tissue differentiation, formation, and disease, with the ultimate goal of using mechanically tunable biomaterials to regenerate or repair musculoskeletal tissues.
About the presenter
Sophia Theodossiou grew up in Athens, Greece, and completed undergraduate studies in Human Biology and Anthropology at Northwestern University. After several years working in the outdoor industry and in emergency and wilderness medicine, she returned to graduate school and completed a Ph.D. in Bioengineering at the University of Idaho in August 2020.
Since September 2020, she has been a NIH IRACDA postdoctoral fellow in the Kaplan Lab at Tufts University, and a NIH ODET trainee in the Pourquie Lab at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA. Her research aims to understand how the changes in mechanical signals observed during development can be harnessed by tissue engineering methods to regenerate musculoskeletal tissues following injury or disease.
When not in the lab, Sophia can be found backcountry skiing, mountain biking, or volunteering as a Wilderness EMT.