Profile
Joshua Francois is a doctoral student in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of California, San Diego. He studies the biomechanics involved in 3-dimensional neutrophil migration under the mentorship of his advisors Professor Juan Carlos Lasheras (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering) and Professor Shu Chien (Bioengineering). Specifically, his dissertation is focused on developing in vitro experimental systems to investigate neutrophil migration in extra cellular matrices and computational methods to obtain the forces that neutrophils exert while migrating in these 3D environments. His work will contribute to the tools that are available to researchers studying 3D cell migration. It will also provide insight into the mechanics of neutrophil motility, which may aid in the development of therapeutics designs to regulate neutrophil migration during inflammatory processes. His long term research goal is to understand the relationship between biochemistry and mechanics during cell migration.
