BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Memento EPFL//
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:EPFL BioE Talks SERIES  "Biological Shapes Emerging From Physics a
 t the Nanoscale"
DTSTART:20220328T160000
DTEND:20220328T170000
DTSTAMP:20260511T044730Z
UID:0fee2d3dbe3a0d5cebdd6aec7aa79d691fe9c6b5299587ec036aefeb
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Prof. Sonia Contera\, Clarendon Laboratory\, Physics Departmen
 t\, University of Oxford (UK)\nWEEKLY EPFL BIOE TALKS SERIES\n\nAbstract:\
 nBiological Shape is central to many scientific and technological problems
 . Currently\, the properties of complex\, adaptive biological shapes and s
 tructures are studied in diverse fields of biology\, medicine\, engineerin
 g\, materials\, computer science and biological physics.  The shapes of b
 iological tissues emerge from a complex interplay of physics\, chemistry a
 nd genetics (evolution) that creates structures able to adapt to their env
 ironments and allow organisms to survive and process information across te
 mporal and special scales.  Shape and mechanical stability of living orga
 nisms rely on precise control in time and space of growth\, which is achie
 ved by dynamically tuning the mechanical properties of their hierarchicall
 y built structures from the nanometer up.\n In my lab we use one of the m
 ain tools of nanotechnology\, the atomic force microscope (AFM)\, to extra
 ct the physics underlying the emergence of biological shapes from the nano
 scale.  It is now well established that cellular behaviour (including ste
 m cell differentiation) crucially depends on the mechanical properties of 
 the cells’ environment. Much attention has been directed towards the imp
 ortance of the stiffness of the natural or artificial matrices where cells
  grow\, with the purpose of either understanding mechanotransduction\, or 
 controlling the behaviour of cells in medical applications such as  tissu
 e engineering. While stiffness has been the focus of most experimental res
 earch\, neither cells nor matrices are elastic. Biological systems dissipa
 te energy (i.e. they are viscous)\, present different time responses at di
 fferent spatial scales that characterise their responses to external stimu
 li. Measuring viscoelasticity at the nanoscale has remained experimentally
  challenging [1\,2]. In my talk I will present  AFM-based techniques to m
 easure and map the viscoelasticity of living tissues\, cells\, membranes\,
  collagen\, extracellular matrices\, and tissue engineering matrices acros
 s the spatial and temporal scales\, and chip-based spectroscopic technique
 s to assess viscoelasticity from Hz to 100s kHz at the nano and micro scal
 e developed in my lab.  Our results have uncovered that extracellular mat
 rices of both living plants and tumours present an almost perfect linear v
 iscoelastic behaviour that is key to understand their growth and shape. I 
 will present our work showing how the growth and shape of the roots\, leav
 es and hypocotyl of living Arabidopsis thaliana living plants are related 
 to the nanoscale viscoelasticity of plant cell walls [3] at the time scale
 s probed by multifrequency AFM and how this can be understood using concep
 ts and theories from non-equilibrium thermodynamics. I will also show how 
 this knowledge can be used to create “smart” bioinspired materials\, w
 hich progressively will harness biological properties\, such as adaptation
 \, and eventually learning [4].\n\nReferences:\n[1] “Multifrequency AFM 
 reveals lipid membrane mechanical properties and the effect of cholesterol
  in modulating viscoelasticity” 2019. Z Al-Rekabi\, S Contera\; Proceedi
 ngs of the National Academy of Sciences 115 (11)\, 2658-2663.\n[2] “Mapp
 ing nanomechanical properties of live cells using multi-harmonic atomic fo
 rce microscopy”2011  A Raman\, S Trigueros\, A Cartagena\, APZ Stevenso
 n\, M Susilo\, E Nauman\, S  Contera. Nature Nanotechnology 6 (12)\, 809.
 \n[3] “Mapping cellular nanoscale viscoelasticity and relaxation times r
 elevant to growth of living Arabidopsis thaliana plants using multifrequen
 cy AFM” J Seifert\, C Kirchhelle\, I Moore\, S Contera.  Acta Biomateri
 alia\, 2021\;121:371-382.\n[4] “Nano comes to life: How nanotechnology i
 s transforming medicine and the future of biology” Sonia Contera\, Princ
 eton University Press 2019.\n\n\nBio:\n(from Wikipedia)\nSonia Antoranz Co
 ntera (born 1970) is a Spanish physicist. She serves as Professor of Biolo
 gical Physics at the University of Oxford\, a Senior Fellow at the Oxford 
 Martin School\, and a Senior Research Fellow at Green Templeton College. S
 he studied for her Licenciatura in Physics at the Autonomous University of
  Madrid and went on to study in Moscow\, Prague and Beijing. She received 
 her PhD from Osaka University in 2000\, where her supervisor was Hiroshi I
 wasaki.\nHaving traveled extensively during her education\, Contera speaks
  Spanish\, English\, Chinese\, Czech\, Russian\, Danish\, Japanese\, Germa
 n and French.\nContera's research uses physics and nanotechnology to under
 stand biological problems. She has a special interest in the role of mecha
 nics in biology and designs nanomaterials that mimic biological functions 
 for biomedical applications such as drug delivery and tissue engineering. 
 In 2003\, she began working at Oxford. Contera was Co-Director of the Oxfo
 rd Martin Programme on Nanotechnology for Medicine from 2008 to 2013. In 2
 014–2016\, she was a Member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Co
 uncil on Nanotechnology. In 2017\, Contera was appointed Chair of the Scan
 ning Probe Microscopy Section of the Royal Microscopical Society.\nContera
 's book Nano Comes to Life: How Nanotechnology is transforming medicine an
 d the future of Biology (Princeton University Press) was published Decembe
 r 2019. The book was reviewed by Nature\, Nature Physics\, the New Scienti
 st\, BBC Science Focus and was featured in BBC Radio 4 "Start of the Week"
 . It was published in paperback in 2022\, in Chinese by CITIC press and in
  Japanese by Newton Press.\nContera is also a public speaker on the medica
 l\, philosophical and social consequences of the science emerging at the i
 nterface of nanotechnology\, physics and biology\; she has spoken in forum
 s such as the Royal Institution of Great Britain. She also writes on commu
 nication and the mission of science.\n\n\n\nZoom link (with one-time regis
 tration for the whole series) for attending remotely: https://go.epfl.ch/E
 PFLBioETalks\n\n\nInstructions for 1st-year Ph.D. students who are under E
 DBB’s mandatory seminar attendance rule:\nIF you are not attending in-pe
 rson in the room\, please make sure to\n\n	send D. Reinhard a note before 
 noon on seminar day\, informing that you plan to attend the talk online\, 
 and\n	be signed in on Zoom with a recognizable user name (not a pseudonym 
 making it difficult or impossible to be identified).\n\nStudents attending
  the seminar in-person should collect a confirmation signature after the t
 alk - please print your own signature sheet beforehand (71 kB pdf availabl
 e for download here).
LOCATION:SV 1717 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==SV%201717 https://go.epfl.ch/
 EPFLBioETalks
STATUS:CONFIRMED
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR