Celeste Nelson

Celeste Nelson is an expert on the role of mechanical forces and mechanical signaling in tissue morphogenesis and disease progression. Currently, her laboratory focuses on engineering-based materials approaches for understanding and manipulating the development of the mammary gland and the vertebrate lung. Using a combination of tissue engineering, quantitative imaging, and computational modeling, her team has uncovered the relative roles of epithelial contraction and smooth muscle differentiation in lung morphogenesis. Her group has also shown a key role for mechanical stress gradients in collective migration, and is leading efforts to use 3D-printing technologies to provide instructive cues for organs to auto-assemble ex vivo.