Jennifer Schwarz
Syracuse University, NY·Physics
Cells in our tissues are constantly squeezed and stretched. The nucleus is the compartment that holds a cell's genetic material, and it is surrounded by a protective protein shell.
- Fields
Physics
Biophysics
Biology
- Topics
mechanobiology
mechanical homeostasis
cell nucleus
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2028
What they work on
- Determine how compressing a cell deforms and damages its nucleus, and how the nuclear shell adapts by resealing after blebbing and rupture, using experiments and computational models.
- Investigate how whole-cell compression causes chromatin, the packaged genetic material inside the nucleus, to reorganize and adapt.
- Explore how tissue-level forces influence chromatin organization and identify new strategies cells use to adapt to these forces.
- Integrate nuclear-, cell- and tissue-scale findings into a multi-tiered physics model that predicts how cells and tissues maintain mechanical homeostasis under stress.
More about the research
When a cell is compressed, that shell can bulge outward into protrusions called blebs, and it can even rupture. Bulging and rupture may relieve built-up stress so that the nucleus keeps working. Too much force, however, can damage cells and change which genes they switch on. Mechanical homeostasis is the ability of cells and tissues to absorb such forces and still function. It is hard to understand because events at the scale of the nucleus, the whole cell and the tissue all affect one another.
Why it matters
Large mechanical forces, such as those caused when a swollen region of tissue presses on its neighbors, can damage cells and change their gene expression in ways that may disrupt normal function. A predictive model of how nuclei and chromatin withstand and recover from compression could clarify how tissues stay robust. It could also inform the fields of mechanobiology and quantitative biology on when this protection fails.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Katharine Ullman
University of Utah, UT·Biology
Determine how LEM2, an inner nuclear membrane protein, helps organize the newly forming nuclear envelope after cell division, using timelapse microscopy and proximity labeling to identify nearby proteins.
Frederick MacKintosh
Rice University, TX·Physics
Develop a predictive effective medium theory, an averaging method that treats the network as a uniform material, for the strain-driven stiffening transition in 2D and 3D networks of stiff, athermal fibers such as collagen.
Alison Patteson
Syracuse University, NY·Biophysics·Early-career
Determine how vimentin intermediate filaments control the shape and deformability of the nucleus as cells squeeze through confined 3D spaces.
The school
Syracuse University: 13 labs on PI Pages, $199M a year on research, 168 research doctorates a year.
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