Sean Sun, professor, and Mohammad Ikbal Choudhury, PhD candidate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Institute for NanoBioTechnology, have co-authored a recent study published in Nature on May 8, 2019.

The study, titled “Hypo-osmotic-like stress underlies general cellular defects of aneuploidy,” focuses on understanding aneuploidy, or the state of having abnormal chromosome numbers.

Aneuploidy is a hallmark of cancer, the cause of several congenital defects, and is linked to Alzheimer’s disease and autism. However, the cause and consequence of aneuploidy remain poorly understood. The study sheds light on the impact of aneuploidy on gene expression and cellular physiology, and the relationship between aneuploidy and cellular stress.

Choudhury contributed to the study by performing mechanical measurements on pressure in cancer-like cells. Members of the research team included postdoctoral fellow Hung-Ji Tsai in the Department of Cell Biology at Johns Hopkins Medicine, and Bloomberg Distinguished Professors Rong Li (Cell Biology) and Michael Schatz (Computer Science and Biology).

Read the journal article on the Nature website.

Story by Catherine Graham. This story was posted by the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Mohammad Ikbal Choudhury