The Journal of Cell Biology presented a very important research conducted by team of biologists and engineers at the University of California, San Diego and led by a Greek scientist, Effie Bastounis. This study is expected to open new horizons for the development of new pharmacological strategies for treatment of chronic inflammatory diseases. Effie Bastounis works as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California.
“We have made a discovery concerning the understanding of the mechanistic way white blood cells move towards inflammatory foci,” stated Effie Bastounis in a recent interview.
Figuring out how white blood cells move required an interdisciplinary approach involving engineering and biological sciences. The discovery of a biochemical process that the cell uses to produce the necessary forces to move, opens new horizons in drug design for the treatment of many chronic inflammatory diseases (such as arthritis, type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis), which will be based on controlling white blood cell migration.
The team used new analytical tools to measure, with a high degree of accuracy and resolution, the forces the cells exert to move forward. The novel methodology, which they have been refining during the last several years supported by grants from National Institutes of Health(R01-GM084227 and R01-GM037830), is called Fourier Traction Force Microscopy. Before their study, scientists thought white blood cells did not move in a highly coordinated manner.
Effie Bastounis was born in Washington DC, but grew up in Athens. She studied at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens. Since her first year of studies at the National Technical University she began to show particular interest in the field of biomechanics. She then decided to move to the US in order to make contacts, accumulate experience and take part in various research programs.