Juan García Sánchez, from Forcetool Group, defends his PhD thesis at Salón de Actos. Read an interview with him here.
Abstract: In AFM, Force – Distance curves (FDC) are commonly used for the characterization of nanomechanical properties of living cells. The transformation of these measurements into nanomechanical properties requires the development of suitable contact mechanics models. To validate these models, finite element simulations were performed.
These simulations also made made possible the extension of the theoretical study to more realistic systems, including the actual topographic surfaces of cells.
On the other hand, the high variability in biological systems requires significant statistics to extract valuable information, which implies the acquisition of large datasets. In addition, different experimental techniques can provide different results from the same samples. The need for systematic data processing and analysis led to the development of an interactive platform for these processes, cForce.
This platform was applied in the study of the time–dependent mechanical response of cells to AFM force spectroscopy techniques.
Experiments on NIH 3T3 fibroblasts and HeLa cells showed common trends in their behavior. The results exposed a redistribution of the applied stress between the solid and liquid elements of the cell as the velocity or the frequency changed. The corresponding nanomechanical maps revealed structures that were not visible on AFM's topographic maps.
