Soft Matter Seminar: Prof. Ashlee N. Ford Versypt

Research interests: Multiscale modeling of tissues, treatments, and toxicology

Abstract: Dr. Ford Versypt leads the Systems Biomedicine and Pharmaceutics research lab, which develops and uses multiscale systems engineering approaches including mathematical modeling and computational simulation to enhance understanding of the mechanisms governing tissue remodeling and damage as a result of diseases and infections and to simulate the treatment of those conditions to improve human health. The lab specializes in (a) modeling mass transport of biochemicals through heterogeneous porous materials—primarily extracellular matrices—that change morphology dynamically due to the influence of chemical reactions and (b) modeling dynamic, multi-species biological systems involving chemical, physical, and biological interactions of diverse, heterogeneous cell populations with these materials and the chemical species in tissue microenvironments. In this seminar, vignettes of three lines of research will be highlighted including (1) glucose-stimulated damage to kidney cells during diabetes, (2) cell movement through complex tumor microenvironments under the influence of various chemical signals, and (3) viral and immune-induced damage in SARS-CoV-2 infected lung tissue. This work is currently supported by an NSF CAREER award and NIH R35 MIRA grants. Additionally, Dr. Ford Versypt is active in engineering education research and training. She will briefly showcase some of her team’s interactive computing activities as chemical engineering educational tools in university and informal learning environments for broad access to students, educators, researchers, and lay people.