More than 60 people attended the “Mechanobiology of Cancer Summer School 2019” organised by the Mechano·Control consortium. The summer school was held in Prullans, a tiny village located at the Catalan Pyrenees between 17 and 21 of September. The event was a great success both in participation and scientific level. The aim of the summer school was to provide training on mechanobiology, and specifically its application to breast cancer, and promote interactions between professionals of the field. The school included lectures as well as practical workshops in different techniques and disciplines, ranging from modelling to biomechanics to cancer biology.
Christina Scheel during her keynote presentation
The morning sessions where dedicated to the keynote sessions from leading researchers in the mechanobiology field. The sessions left room to exchange opinions and doubts between the participants and the speakers. On the first day, Guillaume Salbreux (Francis Crick Institute) gave a lecture on “Physics of epithelial deformations” and Buzz Baum (Francis Crick Institute) on “Cancer cell division”. The second day started with Marija Plodinec’s (University Hospital Basel) keynote on “Nanomechanical profiling of living epithelial tissues in health and disease and potential applications in routine clinical setting” followed by Peter Friedl’s (St. Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre) intervention on Plasticity of adhesion and matrix guidance in cancer invasion and metastasis”. The last day started with Andrew Ewald (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine for Cell Dynamics) and his talk on “Novel roles of cell adhesion in breast cancer metastasis” and to finish with the scientific sessions, Christina Scheel (St. Josef Hospital, Ruhr-University Bochum) with her lecture “Dynamic collagen deformation drives branching morphogenesis in mammary organoids derived from human breast tissue“.
The keynote sessions were followed by short talks from the attendees of the summer school, which created a space for sharing knowledge and exchanging the different research that is being carried out in different institutions around the world.
Marino Arroyo during his workshop
The afternoon sessions where more interactive and hands-on sessions with six different workshops organised by the Mechano·Control members. Marino Arroyo (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya) gave an interactive workshop on “Vertex modelling in biomechanics” using the Matlab programme, Sergi Garcia-Manyes (King’s College London) on “Single molecule mechanics”, Manuel Gómez from Xavi Trepat’s lab (Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia) on “Traction force microscopy”, Menno de Jong and Onno van den Boomen (Noviocell) on “Gel mechanics”, Patrick Derksen (University Medical Center Utrecht) on “Fundamentals of breast cancer biology” and Julieta Páez and Gulistan Kocer (Leibniz Institute for New Materials) on the “Chemistry of tuneable gels”.
Finally, the last day there was a poster session, where amongst the 30 posters, the keynote speakers had to give an award to the best poster. Adam Ouzeri, PhD at LaCaN – Cell and tissue mechanobiology, from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) won the prize for his poster “Upscaling active gel models of the actin cortex to epithelial mechanics”.
“Wet lab scientists get wet outside the bench” Group photo
Not everything would be training, there was also time for leisure and social activities to promote networking between the participants, PI’s and keynote speakers. There was a hiking trip and a visit to the green house located near the hotel.
