Fu Lab
Principal Investigator: Tian-Ming Fu
Institution: Princeton University (Princeton, NJ)
Primary Subfield: Molecular & Cell Bio
Recruitment Status: ✅ Accepting PhD Students ✅ Hiring Postdocs
Research Focus
Project Summary Mechanical forces between cells are fundamental drivers of tissue form and function. They guide morphogenesis during embryonic development, coordinate tissue repair after injury, and contribute to pathological processes such as cancer invasion and fibrosis. A deeper understanding of these forces, and of their interplay with genetics and biochemistry, also holds promise for advancing tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and biomaterials development. Despite their central importance, intercellular forces remain largely “invisible” in intact, three-dimensional tissues. The lack of scalable technologies that can map and perturb intercellular forces with sufficient spatial and temporal resolution has left mechanics underexplored compared to genetics and biochemistry, where powerful tools are abundant and readily accessible. Our program seeks to address this gap by establishing an integrated experimental and computational platform to map, modulate, and model intercellular forces in living tissues. We will take a multidisciplinary approach that integrates flexible microfabricated bioelectronic sensor–actuator devices, high-speed volumetric optical microscopy, and com…
Active NIH Awards
- 1R35GM165761-01: Mapping, Modulating, and Modeling Intercellular Forces in Living Tissues (2026)
- 5R21EB035681-03: Metasurface-Integrated Open-Top Lattice Light Sheet Microscope for High-Throughput Bioimaging (2026)
- 5R21EB035681-02: Metasurface-Integrated Open-Top Lattice Light Sheet Microscope for High-Throughput Bioimaging (2025)
- 1R21EB035681-01: Metasurface-Integrated Open-Top Lattice Light Sheet Microscope for High-Throughput Bioimaging (2024)
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