Jan Lammerding

Biography

Jan Lammerding is an Associate Professor in the Nancy E. and Peter C. Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering and the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology at Cornell University. After obtaining a Diploma Ingenieur degree in Mechanical Engineering in his native Germany, he completed his Ph.D. in Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) studying subcellular biomechanics and mechanotransduction signaling in the laboratories of Roger Kamm (MIT) and Richard T. Lee (Harvard Medical School/Brigham and Women's Hospital). Before joining Cornell University, Dr. Lammerding served as a faculty member at Harvard Medical School/Brigham and Women's Hospital while also teaching in the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT. Dr. Lammerding has won several prestigious awards, including a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, an American Heart Association Scientist Development Grant, and the BWH Department of Medicine Young Investigator Award. Dr. Lammerding was featured as one of the 2014 Young Innovators in the Cell and Molecular Bioengineering Journal. Dr. Lammerding has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles, including in Nature, Science, and PNAS. His research is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program

Research Interest

Cells in the human body are continuously exposed to large physical forces and deformations. Examples include contracting muscle cells, cells in tendons, bones and cartilage, but also neutrophils or metastatic cancer cells that pass through narrow capillaries, exit blood vessels, and squeeze through dense tissues to reach distant sites in the body. Consequently, mutations that alter the mechanical properties of cells or their ability to withstand physical stress can result in debilitating diseases or facilitate the spreading of cancer.