LiKang Chin Profile

LiKang Chin, PhD

  • Graduate Program Director
  • Assistant Teaching Professor
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Affiliated Programs

Education

  • PhD, Biomedical Engineering (2011)
    Case Western Reserve University (OH)
  • MS, Biomedical Engineering (2007) 
    Case Western Reserve University (OH)
  • BSE, Bioengineering (2001)
    University of Pennsylvania (PA)

About Me

I am a huge enthusiast of the biomedical engineering field. I received my BSE from the University of Pennsylvania, my MS and PhD from Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Clinic, and I completed my postdoctoral studies at Penn – all in Biomedical Engineering. Before joining Widener faculty, I was the technical director for a research core of the Physical Sciences Oncology Center at Penn, studying the physics of liver cancer. As an educator, I hope to engage students by distilling complex science down to simple concepts, providing hands-on lab experience, and introducing them to the diversity of biomedical engineering.

Research Interests

My interest in biomaterials and tissue engineering was kickstarted during my first job as an engineer for Cook Biotech Inc., a company that manufactures medical devices made of small intestinal submucosa. Since then, I have studied mechanobiology, inflammation, tissue engineering and hyaluronan in tendon, fat, and liver. My current research interests include the mechanical behavior of diseased soft tissues and identifying the contributing cellular and extracellular matrix structures. I have particular interest in adipocytes and adipose tissue, the effects of fatty acids on mechanosensing and inflammation, and the development of cell- or tissue-engineering treatment strategies.

Publications

  • Chin L, Theise ND, Loneker AE, Janmey PA, Wells RG. Lipid droplets disrupt mechanosensing in human hepatocytes. Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol. 2020 Jul 1 319(1), G11-G22.
  • van Oosten A, Chen X, Chin L, Cruz K, Patterson AE, Pogoda K, Shenoy V, Janmey PA. Emergence of tissue-like mechanics from fibrous networks confined by close-packed cells. Nature, 2019 Sept 573(7772), 96-101.
  • Chin L, Xia Y, Discher DE, Janmey PA. Mechanotransduction in cancer. Current Opinion in Chemical Engineering. 2016 11, 77-84.
  • Pogoda K, Chin L, Georges PC, Byfield FJ, Bucki R, Kim R, Weaver M, Wells RG, Marcinkiewicz C, Janmey PA. Compression stiffening of brain and its effect on mechanosensing by glioma cells. New Journal of Physics. 2014 Jul 16, 075002.