News

Ishaan Puranam Defends Ph.D. Dissertation

Congrats to Ishaan Puranam, who successfully defended his Ph.D. Dissertation on his project on "Developing Molecular Tools to study N-cadherin mediated Adherens Junction Mechanobiology". We wish him the best of luck in his postdoc and scientific career!

Brent gives a talk at Triangle Protein Design (TriPoD) Seminar Series

Brent gives a talk titled “Optimizing the Mechanical Properties of Polypeptide Linkers for Protein Engineering” at the Triangle Protein Design (TriPoD) Seminar Series as a guest speaker.

Brent gives a talk at UT Southwestern

Brent gives a talk titled “Towards Developing Molecular Systems Mechanobiology” as a guest speaker in the Systems Biology Seminar, UT Southwestern, Dallas, TX.

Meghan presented at the 2024 BMES

Meghan presented a poster on her work "Identifying Vinculin-Tension-Sensitive Protein-Protein Interactions by Mass Spectrometry" at the 2024 BMES, Baltimore. Good job, Meghan!

Brent gives a talk at International Soft Matter Conferences

Brent gives a talk titled “Coupling During Collective Cell Migration” at the International Soft Matter Conferences, Raleigh, NC.

Brent gives a talk at Signaling by Adhesion Receptors Gordon Research Conference

Brent gives a talk titled “Probing the Effects of Molecular Tension on Protein Function in Cellulo” at the Signaling by Adhesion Receptors Gordon Research Conference, Manchester, NH.

Cell Reports Methods

 

Dr. Shoyer publishes his work in Cell Reports Methods titled "Detection of fluorescent protein mechanical switching in cellulo". See more under the Publications tab. Way to go, Dr. Shoyer!

T. Curtis Shoyer Defends Ph.D. Dissertation

Congrats to T. Curtis Shoyer who successfully defended his Ph.D. Dissertation on experimental and modeling approaches to investigate molecular-scale mechanosensitive processes in collective cell migration. We wish him the best of luck in his postdoc and scientific career!

PNAS

T. Curtis Shoyer and Dr. Evan Gates published their work in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) titled "Coupling during collective cell migration is controlled by a vinculin mechanochemical switch". See more under the Publications tab, or check out a brief summary of the paper here. Way to go, Curtis and Dr. Gates!

Nature Communications

Dr. Juilee Malavade publishes her work in Nature Communications titled "Molecular basis and cellular functions of vinculin-actin directional catch bonding". See more under the Publications tab. Way to go, Dr. Malavade!

Brent gives a talk at Simons Center for Computational Physical Chemistry, New York University

Brent gives a talk titled “Probing the Effects of Molecular Tension on Protein Function in Cellulo” as a guest speaker at Symposia on Molecular Mechanisms of Mechanosensing, Simons Center for Computational Physical Chemistry, New York University, NY.

Curtis gives talk at Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology

Curtis Shoyer traveled to the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology at Cornell University, where he recieved an Emerging Scholar Award and presented his research on mechanosensitive mechanisms in collective cell migration.

Meghan, Siyan, Nikki, and Benjamin present research at 2023 BMES Annual Meeting

Meghan Reynolds presented a podium talk on "Investigating vinculin-tension-sensitive protein-protein interactions by mass spectrometry." Siyan He presented a poster on "Investigating membrane-cortex adhesion using FRET-based tension sensors". Nikki Angel presented a poster on "Understanding the reciprocal crosstalk of mechanical and inflammatory cues on pulmonary fibrosis". Benjamin Johns presented a poster on "Screening the mechanical performance of fluorescent proteins in living cells". Congratulations to Meghan, Siyan, Nikki, and Benjamin!

Meghan Attends Triangle Cytoskeleton 2023

Meghan presented a poster on her work "Identifying Vinculin-Tension-Sensitive Protein-Protein Interactions by Mass Spectrometry" at the 2023 Triangle Cytoskeleton Conference.

 

Juilee Malavade defends dissertation

Congrats to Juilee who defended her thesis dissertation on Tuesday, September 19th on the function of vinculin-actin catch bonding in fibroblast mechanobiology! We wish her the best of luck in her future endeavors in industry!

Curtis Teaches Summer Module

Curtis Shoyer taught a summer module "Introduction to Digital Image Processing" as part of Duke's Research in Engineering Program (DukeREP).

Curtis attends EMBO

Curtis Shoyer presented his work on collective cell migration in Dresden, Germany at the EMBO conference, "Physics of Living Systems: From physical properties to biological function".

Curtis Shoyer Selected as Weill Institute Emerging Scholar

Congratulations Curtis!

Brent gives a talk at Fibronectin, Integrins, and Related Molecules Gordon Research Conference

Brent gives a talk titled “Identifying Constitutive and Context-Specific Molecular Tension-Sensitive Protein Recruitment Within Focal Adhesions” at the Fibronectin, Integrins, and Related Molecules Gordon Research Conference, Ventura Beach, CA.

Hoffman Lab Attends ASCB 2022

Dr. Hoffman, Curtis and Juilee attended ASCB 2022 in Washington D.C. Curtis presented a poster and Juilee gave a Minisymposium Talk. Great work everyone!

Triangle Cytoskeleton 2022

The Hoffman Lab attended the Triangle Cytoskeleton conference at the North Carolina Museum of Natural History on Monday September 19th, 2022. Great work to all the attendees and congratulations to Curtis Shoyer on being awarded Best Poster!

Congratulations Dr. Tao!

Congratulations to the newly anointed Dr. Arnold Tao for successfully defending his thesis Thursday September 15th, 2022!

Hoffman Lab Receives Spark Seed Grant

Congratulations to the lab for receiving a DST Spark Seed Grant from Duke's Office for Research and Innovation!

Curtis Wins CMBE Travel Award, Gives Talk

Curtis Shoyer received a travel award for the 2022 BMES CMBE (Cellular and Biomolecular Engineering) Conference, where he gave a research talk titled "A Mechanochemical Switch for Supracellular Migration." Great work, Curtis!

Ben Presents at BSURF Poster Session

Congrats to Benjamin Johns, rising sophomore, on his recent poster presentation titled “Biosensors to Investigate Collective Cell Migration.” Thank you to Duke’s Biological Sciences Undergraduate Research Fellowship (BSURF) program for an awesome summer!