Objective Cell adhesion is considered to play an important role in many biological functions such as the regulation of organ and tissue development during embryogenesis, and the maintenance of normal tissue structure in the adult organism.The specificity of cell-adhesion is controlled by genetic expression of receptors at the cell surface, which bind to ligand molecules of target cells or tissue by lock-and-key principles. The cadherins, membrane-spanning glycoproteins, initiate intercellular junctions by homophilic ligation of their extracellular domains in the presence of calcium.The stability of these adhesive junctions is ensured by the cytoskeletal elements that link indirectly the intracellular cadherin domain with the actin cytoskeleton. The molecular mechanism involved in cadherin-mediated contact formation and in the initiation of signalling cascades upon cadherin binding remains poorly understood.The goal of this research work at the interface of physics, biology and chemistry is the study of cell-cell adhesion phenomena.Four different directions will be followed to entangle the chemo-mechanical coupling in adhesion phenomena, namely by- designing nano-patterned surfaces which mimic adhesion functions for one of the two cell adhesion partner,- to apply nanostructured surfaces as 'nanorulers' to measure essential length scale in expected adhesion protein clusters,- to measure adhesion forces for elucidating biological adhesion mechanism by physical means, and- designing microfluidic devices which allow to quantify responses of cells adhering to well-defined surface patterns due to spatially addressed external chemical cues to cell membranes. Fields of science natural scienceschemical sciencesinorganic chemistryalkaline earth metalsnatural sciencesbiological sciencesbiochemistrybiomoleculesproteinsnatural sciencesbiological sciencescell biologynatural sciencesbiological sciencesdevelopmental biology Keywords Cell adhesion atomic force microscopy biofunctionalized surfaces cadherin microfluidic devices molecular interactions Programme(s) FP6-MOBILITY - Human resources and Mobility in the specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration "Structuring the European Research Area" under the Sixth Framework Programme 2002-2006 Topic(s) MOBILITY-2.1 - Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowships (EIF) Call for proposal FP6-2002-MOBILITY-5 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme EIF - Marie Curie actions-Intra-European Fellowships Coordinator UNIVERSITY OF HEIDELBERG EU contribution No data Address Germany See on map Total cost No data
