ChE Seminar Series: Advanced Material and Computational Tools to Enable the Study and Application of Cell Mech

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James H. Henderson, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering
Syracuse University

Title: Advanced Material and Computational Tools to Enable the Study and Application of Cell Mechanobiology

Abstract: Recent advances in stimuli responsive and multifunctional polymers are enabling new investigations and understanding of cell mechanobiology—the study of how physical forces at the cell level contribute to development, maintenance, wound healing, and disease. By developing computational tools that enable study of the interactions of the polymers and cells, the value of stimuli responsive and multifunctional polymer platforms can be broadened, amplified, and democratized. Current work demonstrating the development, characterization, and application of stimuli responsive and multifunctional polymers and the computational approaches that complement them will be presented.

Bio: James (Jay) Henderson, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering and the Associate Director of BioInspired Syracuse: The Institute for Material and Living Systems at Syracuse University. His training in Mechanical Engineering was performed at Rice University (BS) and at Stanford University (MS, PhD), where he was a dual Hertz Foundation/Burt and Deedee McMurtry Stanford Graduate Fellow. He performed postdoctoral training in the departments of Biology and Orthopaedics at Case Western Reserve University as an Arthritis Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow. At Syracuse University, the Henderson lab focuses on the study and application of mechanobiology with an emphasis on the development of enabling cytocompatibility and biocompatible shape-memory polymer platforms. Dr. Henderson is a faculty member of the Syracuse Biomaterials Innovation Facility and of the SUNY Upstate Medical University Cancer Research Institute and holds an adjunct position in the Syracuse University department of Biology. He received the Aspiring Investigator Award at the 5th Annual Meeting of the Midwestern Tissue Engineering Consortium in 2005, the New Investigator Recognition Award at the Combined Meeting of the Orthopaedic Research Societies in 2007, the College of Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Excellence Award in 2010, the DARPA Young Faculty Award in the class of 2012, the James K. Duah-Agyeman Faculty Award in 2016, and the Excellence in Graduate Education Faculty Excellence Award in 2017.