24
th
September (Tuesday)
Josef A. Käs was the opener of the POC-2013 Symposium and
welcomed all the speakers and participants (Figure 1). In his
scientific talk he presented results of a recent PNAS research
article, published together with Thomas Magin, on the mecha-
nics of keratinocytes lacking all keratins (k.o. cells) and wild-
type keratinocytes. These experiments clearly demonstrated that
other components of the cytoskeleton than actin-myosin have
an important impact on cellular mechanics and consequently on
cell motility. After him, Dennis Discher presented in a fascinating
talk the role of micropores in blood vessels and how the nuclear
intermediate filament protein lamin A protects chromatin from
damage and how it responds to stress. Then, Fred MacKintosh
gave a lucid account about stress on jammed systems and the
resulting fluctuations of rigid and floppy networks. The discus-
sions and questions were highly fruitful and helpful to get new
ideas from the audience for the speaker as well as for the other
scientists.
After a coffee break with ongoing scientific discussions, Sara
Kaliman presented her newest results on tissue morphology as
a function of density and how substrate stiffness influences the
strength of cell-substrate adhesions. Kris Noel Dahl introduced
her latest results on cancer and stem cell nuclei mechanics using
8 μm pillar spaced substrates and a pipette aspiration method to
determine the stiffness of the nuclei during cell aging. Moreover,
she demonstrated that chromatin is a shear-thinning viscoelas-
tic substrate. Muhammed Zaman sketched the role of decon-
struction of cellular migrators and the cell-matrix feedback in 2D
systems. Additionally, he reported on how cells attach and that
the confirmation, surface coverage and the biochemical as well
as the mechanical interactions are important, which may lead to
the diversity of shapes. He pointed out that the contraction of
cells is important for cell movement as well as bleb formation in
3D microenvironments. Finally, Kerstin Seltmann, a PhD student
from the Magin lab in Leipzig, gave a short talk about the role of
keratins for cell migration through Boyden chambers and cellular
mechanics in general. She demonstrated interestingly that kera-
tin (-/-) cells possess a higher deformability and she postulated
a possible (mechanical?) link between the acto-myosin and the
keratin cytoskeleton.
After a quick lunch in the meeting building, an intense poster
session followed in the entrance hall next to the seminar room.
25th September (Wednesday)
The morning session started with Jens Elgeti, who gave an im-
pressing talk about his collaboration on “interfacial effects in
growing tissues” established at the second POC-2011 symposium
in Leipzig. He pointed out that the pressure on growing tissues
relaxes to homeostatic pressure. When the pressure on a tis-
sue is elevated (20 kPa), the cells grow slower. This means cells
grow lower in the bulk than cells located at the surface. The next
speaker was Ana J. Garciá Sáes and she talked about membrane
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