An international team of researchers, led by University of Minnesota Twin Cities engineers, has discovered that cancer cells invade the body based on the stiffness of their environment, providing a new understanding of how cancer spreads and the potential for improvements to future treatments.
Their study, published on July 11 in the journal Nature Materials, found that not only does the stiffness of their environment impact the speed at which cells move — ranging from stiff (bone tissue) to soft (fatty tissue) to medium stiffness (muscle tissue) — but it also affects the direction in which they move… Continue reading.
Professor David Odde is creating a biophysical computer model that simulates COVID-19 on a molecular and cellular level, and tests therapies and vaccines computationally.