Faculty Search Research Seminar: Shinuo Weng

ME Faculty Candidate Seminar:

“Multiscale mechanobiology shapes tissues in development” 

 Shinuo Weng

Postdoctoral Fellow

University of Texas at Austin

Thursday, March 2, 2023, 11:00 am

2540 ME Grand Conference Room

 GG Brown Building

Seminar Zoom Link

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Abstract: 

Tissue morphogenesis is the process by which cells and tissues acquire their shape and structure during embryonic development.  While the design of a tissue is encoded in the genome, the execution of this program is driven by the mechanical progression of coordinated behaviors at molecular, cellular and tissue scales.  Therefore, understanding the emergence of biomechanical features and their functions in tissue morphogenesis across multiple scales is fundamental to understand normal development and the mechanisms behind congenital malformations.  

During my postdoc, I have studied convergent extension, a conserved collective cell movement that elongates the head-to-tail body axis and several organ systems such as the neural tube, heart, and kidney during development.  In this talk, I will describe novel genes and biomechanical features that integrate forces across length and time scales to ensure robust and efficient convergent extension.

Moving forward, my research will focus on deciphering the intracellular and extracellular mechanical cues that coordinate behaviors across multiple scales during tissue morphogenesis.  This work will provide new insights into the integrated machine of tissue development and further guide our efforts towards tissue engineering applications.

Bio: 

Shinuo Weng was raised on the island of Zhou Shan (Meaning: Boats and Mountains) located on the east coast of China.  She earned her bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and Automation from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, where she studied knee prosthesis and first explored the intersection between biology and engineering.  She then went on to pursue her master’s and doctoral degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, working with Dr. Jianping Fu to study the mechanobiology of cells.  As a postdoctoral fellow, she joined the developmental biology lab of Dr. John Wallingford at UT Austin, where she applied her expertise in mechanobiology to understand embryonic development in a vertebrate model organism.  Her current research focuses on unraveling the mechanical coordination and regulation of molecular, cellular, and tissue behaviors during tissue shape formation by integrating biomechanics, bioengineering, and developmental cell biology.