Our laboratory seeks to discover physical laws governing the abilities of the cytoskeleton to deform, contract, and remodel. These basic mechanical processes underlie a range of higher level phenomena in health and disease including many aspects of cancer, cardiovascular disease, malaria, and morphogenesis, but our major research emphasis is the role of these processes in airway narrowing in asthma. Trainees with backgrounds in engineering sciences, cell biology, or physics of soft condensed matter learn how to work side-by-side to pose new questions, invent new nanotechnologies, apply these technologies in novel experimental investigations, and analyze resulting data in terms of evolving mechanistic understanding of the physical properties of the living cell.

BSME, 1968, Tufts University
Ph.D., 1973, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Physics in biology - Physics in biology: soft cells. Nature; Physics Portal, September, 2001.

A cellular glass menagerie - A cellular glass menagerie, Geoff Brumfiel, Physical Review Focus, American Physical Society, 24 September, 2001.  

Experiments Reveal How Cells Can Act Like Molten Glass - Experiments Reveal How Cells Can Act Like Molten Glass. Kristin Leutwyler, Scientific American.  2001

Clear as glass - Harvard Public Health Review. 2007

A stretch in the cells . Nature, 2007.  

Shape-shifting of Cells Gives Body Stretch . C. Humphries.  Focus. HMS, 2007

Softer side of cells. 2007