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MEAM Seminar: “Mechanical Interfaces for Health: From Mechanobiology to Tactile Perception”
June 17 at 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM
Our lab combines adhesion and tribology with modern polymers and surface coatings to understand soft interfaces in biology towards improving human health and accessibility. On the scale of cells, mechanical stiffness of cells and tissue can indicate diseases like fibrosis or osteoarthritis. On the scale of the human body, mechanical forces generated by friction form the tactile stimuli used to perceive touch. Here, we will show how leveraging soft matter phenomena like elastohydrodynamics and soft sliding friction can overcome existing challenges to access mechanical markers in disease modeling, or to develop new methods to control the sense of touch in haptic devices for people who are blind. We will conclude with some future directions where engineering of mechanical interfaces is the basis towards improving healthcare outcomes.
Charles Dhong
Assistant Professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering & Biomedical Engineering, University of Delaware
Prof. Charles Dhong is an assistant professor at the University of Delaware in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and holds a joint appointment in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. He received his BS in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in the same at Johns Hopkins University. He then held a postdoc at the University of California, San Diego with Prof. Darren Lipomi in the department of nanoengineering.
His research is currently funded through multiple grants through the National Institutes of Health, including as PI and coPI of NIH R01. His students have received awards and recognition in several professional societies.