Abstract: Biological membranes are involved in a large number of cellular processes including cell migration, membrane trafficking, and cell signaling. Significant amount of work have elucidated the molecular machineries that regulate dynamic membrane-based processes. In parallel, there are growing interests in recent years in trying to understand how mechanical state of the cells are utilized as a regulatory input to control cellular processes. My lab is interested in studying the mechanochemical responses of biological systems. In this talk, I will present two directions related to this theme. On the cellular level, we have reconstituted the function of a bacterial mechanosensitive channel MscL in mammalian cells. Using this system, we investigated the role of actin cytoskeleton in mediating local membrane tension that activates MscL, and whether MscL expression might influence 3D confined migration, during which cells experience significant stress. On the synthetic level, we are building artificial systems that can sense mechanical input and transduce a biochemical response. To this end, we are attempting to build artificial platelets that mimic the functionalities of natural platelets. I will discuss several modular platforms that we have developed that together will integrate into functional artificial cells. I term this ‘mechanogenetics’ – analogous to optogenetics, where light is used to control cells expressing light-sensitive ion channels – a new biological technique that may have broad applications in cell and synthetic biology.

Biography: Allen Liu received a B.Sc. degree in Biochemistry (Honors) from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, in 2001. He obtained his Ph.D. in Biophysics in 2007 from the University of California-Berkeley and received his post-doctoral training at The Scripps Research Institute-La Jolla. He started his group in 2012, and he is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan. His current research interests lie in cellular mechanotransduction and uses tools from systems biology, synthetic biology, biophysics, and microfluidics. He is a recipient of the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, a Young Innovator by Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering (CMBE), a Rising Star from CMBE-BMES, and Future of Biophysics Burroughs Wellcome Fund Symposium speaker. He is a recipient of the Endeavour Executive Fellowship (Australia) and the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researcher (Germany).