Events
Queen Mary Bioengineering Seminar Series - Dr. Alberto Elosegui-Artola, The Francis Crick Institute
Date: Wednesday 2 April 2025 15:00 - 16:00 
Location: SEMS Seminar Room, 3rd floor, Engineering Building
Title:
The ECM viscoelasticity controls tissue spatiotemporal dynamics
Abstract:
The mechanical properties of the extracellular matrix (ECM) regulate cellular processes during development, cancer and wound healing. Despite the universality of the ECM's viscoelasticity, how viscoelasticity affects tissue function is unknown. I will present our results where we show that the passive viscoelastic properties of the ECM regulate tissue architecture and patterning both during development and cancer. The acquisition and maintenance of the correct cellular pattern and tissue morphology is essential for organ function in multicellular organisms. Our findings reveal that the ECM viscoelasticity can regulate the spatial and temporal organization of multicellular tissues in both breast and intestinal organoids. Altogether, our work sheds light on the significance of viscoelasticity in governing morphological symmetry breaking instabilities associated with fingering, branching and budding - a fundamental process in morphogenesis and oncogenesis - and suggests ways of controlling tissue form by targeting the ECM
About the speaker:
Alberto Elosegui-Artola is a lecturer in Biophysics in the Department of Physics, King’s College London. Alberto is also a Physical Sciences Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute, where he leads the Cell and Tissue Mechanobiology Laboratory. His lab seeks to understand how physical properties and biochemical cues work together to regulate biological functions. Alberto obtained a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Navarra (Spain) in 2012. After graduation, he moved to Barcelona to the laboratory of Pere Roca-Cusachs at IBEC to pursue his postdoctoral studies. During this time, he contributed to the identification of novel molecular mechanisms that explains how cells sense and respond to mechanical properties. In 2017, he was funded with a Marie-Skłodowska Curie fellowship to continue his research training in David J. Mooney’s laboratory at Harvard University. Here, he examined the influence of the extracellular matrix viscoelasticity in cell and tissue response. In 2021, he was awarded an ERC Starting Grant and started his lab at the Francis Crick Institute in a joint appointment with the Physics Department at King's College London. He integrates physics, engineering and biology to study the role of mechanics in living tissues.
https://www.crick.ac.uk/research/labs/alberto-elosegui-artola