BME Distinguished Seminar Series with Claudia Fischbach-Teschl

Claudia Fischbach-Teschl is the James M & Marsha McCormick Director and Stanley Bryer 1946 Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University. She received her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Technology from the University of Regensburg, Germany and conducted her postdoctoral work at Harvard University in the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Her lab utilizes engineering tools and strategies to gain a better understanding of how tumor-microenvironment interactions regulate cancer development, progression, and therapy resistance with a focus on cell-ECM interactions. She is a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), the Biomedical Engineering Society, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany. She is the recipient of the Momentum Mid-Career Award by the Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Special Interest Group of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) and the inaugural awardee of a Rosalind Franklin Award by the Max Planck Centre for Physics in Medicine in Germany.

ECM Biophysics and Cancer: Mechanisms, Models, and Therapeutic Insights
Microenvironmental changes contribute to the pathogenesis of cancer, but our understanding of how altered cell heterogeneity, extracellular matrix (ECM) deposition, and mechanical cues impact the development, progression, and therapy response of cancer is relatively limited. More intricate models are needed to elucidate the complex biochemical and biophysical interactions that drive tumor initiation, metastasis, metabolic adaptation, and immune evasion. The fields of biomaterials and tumor engineering provide increasingly sophisticated tools and strategies to recapitulate and monitor relevant properties of tumor-microenvironment interactions. These approaches not only bear tremendous potential to advance our current understanding of cancer but are also increasingly explored for more clinically relevant drug testing. This talk will highlight specific examples of how the microenvironment regulates the highly dynamic nature of cancer and will outline opportunities and challenges of the field of tumor engineering.