Mechanobiology of immune cells in native tissue

Dumpster diving immune cells Specialized immune cells remove invaders and damaged structures by eating them up. To understand their “dumpster diving” behaviour, we will develop a new technique where we will study how they dig through garbage. These immune cells must grab their meal, engulf it, and subsequently digest it. With our new dual-sensing particles we will study the forces generated by the immune cells during mealtime. More specifically, we will study this for the first time in the developing zebrafish, which we be the first time we can look at these forces in a living animal. By understanding how these immune cells dig through trash, we will eventually be able to modulate this process in disease.