Brenton D. Hoffman

Research Interests:

Dr. Hoffman’s research focuses on understanding, on a molecular level, how mechanical and chemical cues from the environment are detected, integrated, and manipulated by cells to dictate physiological and patho-physiological responses important in vascular biology.

Specialties:

Biological Materials
Polymer and Protein Engineering
Cardiovascular
Tissue Repair, Tissue Engineering

Awards, Honors, and Distinctions:

• Post-doctoral Fellow, American Heart Association, 2009-2011
• Cardiovascular Research Training Grant (T32), National Institutes of Health, 2007-2009
• Ashton Fellowship in Engineering, 2002-2007

Courses Taught:

• BME 493.03 - PROJECTS IN BIOMED ENG
• BME 494.09 - PROJECTS IN BIOMED ENG
• BME 527.01 - CELL MECHANICS AND MECHANOTRAN

Representative Publications: (More Publications)

• Goguen, B. N. and Hoffman, B. D. and Sellers, J. R. and Schwartz, M. A. and Imperiali, B., Light-Triggered Myosin Activation for Probing Dynamic Cellular Processes, Angewandte Chemie-International Edition, vol 50 no. 25 (2011), pp. 5666-5669.
• Hoffman, B. D. and Grashoff, C. and Schwartz, M. A., Dynamic molecular processes mediate cellular mechanotransduction, Nature, vol 475 no. 7356 (2011), pp. 316-323 [abs].
• Grashoff, C.* and Hoffman, B. D.* and Brenner, M. D. and Zhou, R. B. and Parsons, M. and Yang, M. T. and McLean, M. A. and Sligar, S. G. and Chen, C. S. and Ha, T. and Schwartz, M. A., Measuring mechanical tension across vinculin reveals regulation of focal adhesion dynamics, Nature, vol 466 no. 7303 (2010), pp. 263-U143 [abs].
• Hoffman, B. D. and Crocker, J. C., Cell Mechanics: Dissecting the Physical Responses of Cells to Force, Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering, vol 11 (2009), pp. 259-288 [abs].
• Hoffman, B. D. and Massiera, G. and Crocker, J. C., Fragility and mechanosensing in a thermalized cytoskeleton model with forced protein unfolding, Physical Review E, vol 76 no. 5 (2007) [abs].
• Van Citters, K. M. and Hoffman, B. D. and Massiera, G. and Crocker, J. C., The role of F-actin and myosin in epithelial cell rheology, Biophysical Journal, vol 91 no. 10 (2006), pp. 3946-3956 [abs].
• Hoffman, B. D.* and Massiera, G.* and Van Citters, K. M. and Crocker, J. C., The consensus mechanics of cultured mammalian cells, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol 103 no. 27 (2006), pp. 10259-10264 [abs].
• Lau, A. W. C. and Hoffman, B. D. and Davies, A. and Crocker, J. C. and Lubensky, T. C., Microrheology, stress fluctuations, and active behavior of living cells, Physical Review Letters, vol 91 no. 19 (2003) [abs].