Home
News
El IMB-CNM abre sus puertas para contribuir a la Semana de la Administración Abierta
El IMB-CNM organiza una charla online y una jornada de puertas abiertas con motivo de la Semana de la Administración Abierta, cuyo objetivo es acercar las Administraciones Públicas a la ciudadanía, basándose en los principios del Gobierno Abierto: transparencia, rendición de cuentas, participación ciudadana, integridad pública y colaboración.
The CSIC presents the Interdisciplinary Thematic Platform PTI+ Science and Digital Innovation
Cecilia Jiménez, researcher at the IMB-CNM, and David Rodríguez, from the Institute of Physics of Cantabria (IFCA-CSIC-UC) are the coordinators of the new PTI+ Science and Digital Innovation launched by the CSIC and presented today at the central headquarters in Madrid.
Agenda
Highlights

Current advances in materials science have demonstrated that extracellular mechanical cues can define cell function and cell fate. However, a fundamental understanding of the manner in which intracellular mechanical cues affect cell mechanics remains elusive. How intracellular mechanical hindrance, reinforcement, and supports interfere with the cell cycle and promote cell death is described here. Reproducible devices with highly controlled size, shape, and with a broad range of stiffness are internalized in HeLa cells. Once inside, they induce characteristic cell-cycle deviations and promote cell death. Device shape and stiffness are the dominant determinants of mechanical impairment. Device structural support to the cell membrane and centering during mitosis maximize their effects, preventing spindle centering, and correct chromosome alignment. Nanodevices reveal that the spindle generates forces larger than 114 nN which overcomes intracellular confinement by relocating the device to a less damaging position. By using intracellular mechanical drugs, this work provides a foundation to defining the role of intracellular constraints on cell function and fate, with relevance to fundamental cell mechanics and nanomedicine.
Adv. Mater. 2022, 34, 2109581. https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202109581

Tissue barriers play a crucial role in human physiology by establishing tissue compartmentalization and regulating organ homeostasis. Combining hydrogels with microfluidics technology provides unique opportunities to better recreate in vitro the tissue barrier models including the cellular components and the functionality of the in vivo tissues. Such platforms have the potential of greatly improving the predictive capacities of the in vitro systems in applications such as drug development, or disease modeling. Nevertheless, their development is not without challenges in their microfabrication. In this review, we will discuss the recent advances driving the fabrication of hydrogel microfluidic platforms and their applications in multiple tissue barrier models.
ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2021, 13, 12, 13920–13933. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.0c21573