Sandcastles and surprising origins of basic cellular functions
Finding links physics of granular systems to biology of asthma and embryonic development For immediate release: April 2, 2018 Boston, MA – Cells comprising a tissue can pack into disorderly geometries much as do grains of sand in…
PhD student Christalyn Rhodes named Harvard Horizons Scholar
December 13, 2016 – Christalyn Rhodes has been named a 2017 Harvard University Horizons Scholar. Rhodes is a Ph.D. student in Biological Sciences in Public Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and her thesis research focuses…
'Jammed' cancer cells may explain some tumors’ spread
Biologists and physicists are becoming increasingly convinced that clusters of tumor cells that can move through the body like a phalanx may be responsible for some of the deadliest metastatic cancers. An August 16, 2016 article in Quanta…
No traffic jams in asthmatic cells
Finding offers insight into mechanisms of asthma, other diseases August 11, 2015 -- An unexpected new discovery—that, in people with asthma, the cells that line the airways in the lungs are unusually shaped and “scramble around like there’s…
Unexpected discovery of the ways cells move could boost understanding of complex diseases
For immediate release: Sunday, June 23, 2013 Boston, MA – A new discovery about how cells move inside the body may provide scientists with crucial information about disease mechanisms such as the spread of cancer or the constriction of…
The dance of the cells: A minuet or a mosh?
For immediate release: May 22, 2011 Boston, MA – The physical forces that guide how cells migrate—how they manage to get from place to place in a coordinated fashion inside the living body— are poorly understood. Scientists at…
New understanding of cell movement could spark new cancer treatment research
A new study co-authored by HSPH’s Jeffrey Fredberg sheds new light on the way that cells collectively move within a tissue during embryonic development, wound healing, and the spread of cancerous tumors. As layers of migrating cells move,…