BME Lecture Series: Steven Adie, Cornell University

Abstract: Over the last decade, mechanobiology research has highlighted the importance of matrix mechanical properties, as well as dynamic biophysical cell-matrix interactions. Cell-matrix interactions are also known to be influenced by whether cells are in 3D versus 2D environments, and whether they are isolated or part of a collective/population. Currently, available imaging technologies for the study of biophysical cell-matrix interactions do not offer the spatiotemporal coverage for volumetric time-lapse imaging studies of cell forces in both isolated and collective settings. In this talk, I will present our recent work on the development of traction force optical coherence microscopy (TF-OCM), a new approach to expand the spatiotemporal coverage available for the study of cell-force dynamics in 3D environments, and photonic force optical coherence elastography (PF-OCE), a new method for 3D mechanical microscopy based on optical "pushing" of beads embedded in viscoelastic hydrogels. Examples in tissue phantoms and-engineered cell cultures will be shown to demonstrate the potential of these methods for cell mechanics research.

Bio: Steven G. Adie is an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Cornell University. He completed a bachelor's degree with first class honors in chemical physics in 1997 and a doctorate in electrical and electronic engineering in 2007, both from the University of Western Australia. Between his undergraduate and graduate studies, he worked as a research engineer at Q-Vis Limited – a startup company to commercialize solid-state laser technology for LASIK eye surgery. After completing his doctorate, he did a postdoc in the Biophotonics Imaging Laboratory at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 2013, he started as an assistant professor in the Nancy E. and Peter C. Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University, where his group develops novel optical imaging approaches, primarily based on optical coherence tomography. Adie is the recipient of the NIBIB Trailblazer Award, NSF CAREER Award and the Cornell Discovery and Innovation Research Seed Award.