BME7900 Seminar: J.D. Humphrey (Yale)

Vascular Mechanobiology – Development, Disease Progression, Tissue Engineering

Vascular cells – endothelial, smooth muscle, fibroblasts, tissue resident macrophages – are exquisitely sensitive to changes in their mechanical environment. We will first consider some general principles for understanding and modeling vascular mechanobiology, then illustrate these concepts for three different illustrative examples: arterial development, aortic responses to hypertension, and in vivo development of a tissue engineered vascular graft for children with congenital heart defects. We will find that the same conceptual framework can be used across diverse situations with appropriate choices of the requisite relations for tissue turnover and mechanical properties.

Bio:
J.D. Humphrey received the Ph.D. in engineering science and mechanics from The Georgia Institute of Technology and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in medicine – cardiovascular at the Johns Hopkins University. He is currently John C. Malone Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Yale University, where his research and teaching focuses on vascular mechanics and mechanobiology. He has authored a graduate textbook (Cardiovascular Solid Mechanics), co-authored an undergraduate textbook with a student (An Introduction to Biomechanics), co-authored a handbook (Style and Ethics of Communication in Science and Engineering), and published 400+ archival journal papers.