CAREER: Biological Micro- and Nanotechnology Research and Education

这项研究的目标是开发微纳米技术，使细胞环境的精确工程和亚细胞信号与细胞功能的关联成为可能。基因组学极大地提高了我们对生物系统如何编程的认识。然而，这种“软件”嵌入在细胞的“硬件”中，它与环境相互作用，以计算其特定的输出，如生长、分化或死亡。在这个项目中开发的微纳米技术将能够控制细胞硬件的配置，如受体集群和细胞形状。该技术将用于研究不同硬件配置如何影响亚细胞信号和细胞功能。具体来说，多层层流技术将被用于用生长因子刺激亚细胞微域，软光刻三维蛋白质纳米图技术将被开发用于纳米级细胞外基质工程。这两种技术将提供亚细胞分辨率，控制生长因子信号和粘附信号之间的串扰。这种类型的知识与理解生理过程（如胚胎发育和伤口愈合）以及病理状态（如纤维化和癌症）特别相关。这项研究将与劳动力的教育和培训紧密结合起来，这些劳动力可以将这些科学和工程发现转化为切实的社会和经济改善。教育计划的一个主要组成部分是生物微纳米技术课程，该课程将微纳米技术与细胞生物学无缝结合，并为学生提供理论培训和动手实验经验。

The objective of this proposed research is to develop micro- and nanotechnologies that will enable precise engineering of cellular environments and allow correlation of subcellular signaling with cellular function. Genomics has greatly advanced our knowledge concerning how biological systems are programmed. This "software", however, is embedded in the "hardware" of a cell, which interacts with its environment to compute its specific outputs such as growth, differentiation, or death. The micro- and nanotechnology developed in this project will enable control over configuration of the cellular hardware such as receptor clustering and cell shape. The technology will then be used to study how different hardware configurations affect subcellular signaling and cell function. Specifically, multiple laminar flow technology will be used to stimulate subcellular microdomains with growth factors and soft lithographic three-dimensional protein nanopatterning technology will be developed to perform nanoscale extracellular matrix engineering. The two technologies will provide, with subcellular resolution, control of cross-talk between growth factor signals and adhesive signals. This type of knowledge is specifically relevant to understanding physiological processes such as embryonic development and wound healing as well as pathological states such as fibrosis and cancer. The research will be tightly coupled with the education and training of a work force that can translate these scientific and engineering discoveries into tangible social and economic improvements. A major component of the educational program is a Biological Micro- and Nanotechnology course that will seamlessly integrate micro- and nanotechnology with cell biology and provide both theoretical training and hands-on laboratory experiences to students.