Understanding healing, from the cells on up

Research by a civil engineer from the University of Waterloo is helping shed light on the way wounds heal and may someday have implications for understanding how cancer spreads, as well as why certain birth defects occur.

Professor Wayne Brodland is developing computational models for studying the mechanical interactions between cells. In this project, he worked with a team of international researchers who found that the way wounds knit together is more complex than we thought. The results were published this week in the journal, Nature Physics.

"When people think of civil engineering, they probably think of bridges and roads, not the human body," said Professor Brodland. "Like a number of my colleagues, I study structures, but ones that happen to be very small, and under certain conditions they cause cells to move. The models we build allow us to replicate these movements and figure out how they are driven."

When you cut yourself, a scar remains, but not so in the cells the team studied. The researchers found that an injury closes by cells crawling to the site and by contraction of a drawstring-like structure that forms along the wound edge (the bright yellow in the above image). They were surprised to find that the drawstring works fine even when it contains naturally occurring breaks.

This knowledge could be the first step on a long road towards making real progress in addressing some major health challenges.

"The work is important because it helps us to understand how cells move. We hope that someday this knowledge will help us to eliminate malformation birth defects, such as spina bifida, and stop cancer cells from spreading," said Professor Brodland.

The research team was composed of 10 researchers from Spain, France, Singapore and Canada. Professor Brodland is one of the paper's two Canadian co-authors. His contribution received support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

Photograph of a wound healing by Ester Anon.

 

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Family welcome event

By: Housing and Residences and Student Success Office

Waterloo staff and faculty members are invited to join Housing and Residences and the Student Success Office in welcoming the incoming undergraduate class to campus on August 31 and September 1.

Family Welcome events are hosted on the Labour Day weekend to welcome our new students to their new home and to celebrate the start of their Waterloo career with their families. Volunteers will be greeting families in Housing and Residence buildings or visiting with them in the M3 atrium.

 Creating a strong sense of community for our students from day one is important and your participation in these events allows our students and their families to meet the faculty and staff members that will help shape their experience at Waterloo.

Sign up to volunteer at Family Welcome events.

Register using your UWaterloo user ID. Lunch will be provided for all volunteers.

 

Sunday, August 31

Morning Family Welcome: 8:30 a.m. – 11 a.m.

Afternoon Family Welcome: 11:30 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Family Send-off: 2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.

Monday, September 1

Morning Family Welcome: 8:30 a.m. – 11 a.m.

Afternoon Family Welcome: 11:30 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Family Send-off: 2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.

 

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Tuesday's notes

St. Paul's GreenHouse has been listed as one of 32 Canadian social innovators to follow on Twitter by Charles Tsai, director of learning networks from Ashoka Canada. Ashoka is the largest network of social entrepreneurs worldwide. Tsai leads Ashoka’s university strategy in Canada and writes about social innovation in the Huffington Post. He has also published in the Stanford Innovation Review.

“To be included on this list with some of leading social innovation champions in Canada is truly an honour," said Tania Del Matto, Director of GreenHouse. "Any student who wants to become inspired or immerse themselves in this space should definitely start by following the conversations and activities from these champions."

See the full Canadian innovators list here.

Incoming first-year students are visiting the University of Waterloo for two-day overnight sessions that give them a preview experience of campus life. Now in its 19th year, the Student Life 101 program helps both students and parents with the transition to university before classes begin in September.

The two-day session helps students become familiar with campus and their specific faculty buildings, meet professors and connect with other incoming students. They will also learn about the student services available to them in their first year including success coaching, student awards and financial aid, health services, career planning and co-operative education. The sessions have run on July 21 and 22, July 25 and 26, August 5 and 6, and August 8 and 9, and the next one is scheduled to take place Monday, August 18 to Tuesday, August 19. A special three-day session for international or out-of-province students is scheduled for Wednesday, August 27 to Friday, August 29.

If your grasp of the Italian language is molto buono, then you should check out the current issue of DOMUS, one of the world's leading design magazines, which features an article by Professor Lorenzo Pignatti, director of Waterloo's Rome architecture program, that reports on the Canadian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, the largest architectural exhibition in the world. The pavilion was created by Waterloo Architecture professor Lola Sheppard and her partner, Mason White of the University of Toronto.

 

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