Principal Investigator
Tanmay Lele is an Associate Professor in Chemical Engineering at the University of Florida. He obtained the PhD in Chemical Engineering at Purdue University. This was followed by postdoctoral research in Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School/Children's Hospital. He received the B.Chem.Eng. degree from UDCT, Bombay.
Wu J, Shekhar N, Lele PP and Lele TP, "FRAP Analysis: Accounting for Bleaching during Image Capture", PLOS ONE, In press.
Wu J, Dickinson RB and Lele TP, "Investigation of in vivo microtubule and stress fiber mechanics with laser ablation", Integrative Biology, In press.
Wu J, Misra G, Russell RJ, Ladd AJC, Lele TP and Dickinson RB, "Effect of dynein on microtubule mechanics and centrosome centering", Molecular Biology of the Cell, In press.
Robert J. Russell, Alexandria Y. Grubbs, Sunil Mangroo, Sandra Nakasone, Richard B. Dickinson and Tanmay P. Lele (2010). Sarcomere Length Fluctuations and Flow in Capillary Endothelial Cells, Cytoskeleton (In press).
Wu, J., Lee K, Dickinson RB and Lele TP (2011). How dynein and microtubules rotate the nucleus, Journal of Cellular Physiology (In press).
Chancellor TJ, Lee J, Thodeti C and Lele TP, “Actomyosin tension exerted on the nucleus through nesprin-1 connections influences endothelial cell adhesion, migration and cyclic strain induced reorientation”, Biophysical Journal, 2010 Jul 7;99(1):115-23.
Lee, J., Wang Y, Ren F and Lele TP (2010). A Stamp Wound Assay for Studying Coupled Cell Migration and Cell Debris Clearance, Langmuir (In press).
Contact Information
Tanmay Lele
Department of Chemical Engineering,
Bldg 723,
University of Florida,
Gainesville, FL 32611
352 392 0317
tlele@che.ufl.edu
Welcome to the Lele Laboratory Homepage
We are located in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Florida.
Cells in our body perform complex tasks, including movement across tissues, adhesion to polymeric scaffolds in the body and the sensing of chemical and mechanical signals. These complex processes depend in large part on the intracellular cytoskeleton. Specialized 'motor' proteins that convert chemical energy into mechanical work associate and move along the polymeric cytoskeleton enabling critical cell functions including intracellular mechanical force generation. We are interested in how the cytoskeleton and associated motor proteins generates forces inside the living cell. This work has applications in understanding diseases of the cardiovascular and muscular system, as well as cancer. We are also developing new biomaterials and nanotechnologies for characterizing and controlling cellular forces.
Research Areas
Cytoskeletal Mechanics
One key challenge in the field of ‘Cell Biophysics’ is that it is difficult to perform measurements inside living cells- a lot of what is known is from experiments with cell extracts
or experiments with purified proteins. We have used a new technique- femtosecond laser ablation, to quantify the mechanical properties of the sarcomere- a tensile force generating unit
containing actin filaments that associate with myosin motor proteins. Read
More
Nuclear Mechanics
Cell motility and polarization
require the coordinated motion of intracellular organelles. In particular, positioning of the nucleus is an important part of any dynamic changes in
cell morphology, given that it is the largest and stiffest organelle in the cell. We are interested in the mechanism by which nuclear connectivity to the cytoskeleton
influences endothelial cell motility, adhesion, mechanotransduction and capillary formation. Read More
Nanomaterials
We are interested in controlling cellular contractile forces by fabricating novel types of nanostructures. This research has potential applications in improving cardivoascular and tumor stent performance.
Read
More