Event Date
BME Seminar Speaker series
Dr. Karl Lewis
Integrating Imaging and Pertubation Tools for Interrogating Bone Mechanobiology
Dr. Karl J. Lewis is an Assistant Professor in Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University, where he leads the Lewis Lab focused on osteocyte mechanobiology and bone adaptation. His group develops and applies intravital optical imaging, quantitative analysis, and engineered molecular and nanoparticle tools to discover how osteocytes sense mechanical forces and convert them into biochemical signals in living bone. The lab interrogates core mechanisms that set mechanosensory response thresholds, shape signaling dynamics, and coordinate tissuescale remodeling, including membrane dynamics and endocytic trafficking, local cholinergic regulation, and additional signaling pathways that couple mechanical cues to gene programs. By pairing real-time in vivo readouts with targeted perturbations, the Lewis Lab defines how these mechanisms vary across osteocyte populations and shift in disease-relevant contexts such as osteoporosis and other bone metabolic disorders. This basic mechanistic foundation is used to identify and validate next-generation therapeutic targets that restore healthy mechanoresponsiveness and improve skeletal integrity.