The BCTP hosts an annual symposium, organized by the current BCTP trainees with administrative and financial support provided by the UW Department of Bioengineering. The symposium features an invited Keynote Speaker in the field of cardiovascular bioengineering, as well as talks from our current BCTP trainees, BCTP alumni talks, a career panel, and poster session.
BCTP Symposium: April 26, 2024
Keynote Speaker Information:
Abstract: Using single cell mechanobiology studies, we examine how disease-linked mutations propagate to change the contractile dynamics and cellular morphology of human induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs). We micropattern islands of adhesive protein to constraining the spreading and alignment of hiPSC-CM on hydrogel substrates containing fluorescent microbeads as fiducial markers for traction force microscopy (TFM). We vary substrate stiffnesses from physiological to diseased/fibrotic, apply mechanical stretch, and apply inotropes and myotropes to vary contractile output. We assessed multiple mutations edited into the WTC line along with isogenic controls under stressors. Some cell lines carried an endogenously labeled alpha-actinin GFP reporter for enabling visualization of sarcomere structure and dynamics with force output. These studies suggest changes in contractile force generation drive remodeling of structure and function at a cell-intrinsic level via changes in mechanosignaling.
Bio: Dr. Beth Pruitt is a Professor at the University of California Santa Barbara and Chair of Biological Engineering. She was on the faculty at Stanford University from 2003-2018 in Mechanical Engineering and Bioengineering, Beth served as an officer in the US Navy with a first tour at the engineering headquarters of the Navy nuclear programs, and a second tour as an instructor teaching Systems Engineering (and offshore sailing in the summer) at the U.S. Naval Academy. Dr. Pruitt earned her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University where she was supported as a Hertz Foundation Fellow. Dr. Pruitt was a postdoctoral researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), and in 2012, she returned to Switzerland as a visiting professor in the Lab for Applied Mechanobiology in the Department of Health Sciences and Technology at ETH, Zurich. She has been recognized by the NSF CAREER Award, DARPA Young Faculty Award, Denice Denton Leadership Award and is a Fellow of the ASME, AIMBE, and BMES.
BCTP Alumni Talks and Career Panel:
- Lucas Ting (2013 Alumni)
Co-founder and Director of Research & Development at Stasys Medical
BCTP Year 13 trainee research update - Dominic Filice (2015 Alumni)
Patent Agent at Knobbe Martens
A Path in Patent Law - Jason Murray (2019 Alumni)
Post-doctoral Research Fellow at Fred Hutch (Kiem Lab)
Modeling clinical scale, efficacious CRISPR-edited HSPC therapies in nonhuman primates
Full Schedule: BCTP Symposium Final Schedule
Past Symposia Schedules: