People Faculty

Lance Davidson

Assistant Professor
PhD Biophysics, University of California-Berkeley.

E-mail:
Phone:	412-383-5820
Office:	BST3 5059
Web site:	http://www.engr.pitt.edu/ldavidson/

Overview

Dr. Davidson, whose Ph.D. in biophysics is from the University of California at Berkeley, works on the interfaces between engineering, physics, and biology. His lab in the new Biomedical Science Tower 3 (BST3) building has allowed him to work even more closely with engineers and biologists to integrate molecular genetic details of morphogenesis with cellular and tissue mechanics, with the aim of helping design better artificial tissues and identifying the mechanical sources of birth defects.

Research

To integrate the biomechanics of morphogenesis across a number of size scales from subcellular generation of forces to the macroscopic forces and bulk tissue properties that guide development of the developing embryo. We want to understand, in mechanical terms, how coordinated polarized cell protrusions generate force, and how these forces are converted into tissue-scale movements.

Awards

January 2006: Named to "Faculty of 1000 – Biology"

January 2006: Named Associate Editor to "Cell Communication and Adhesion", ed. Cecilia Lo.

Selected Publications

Davidson, L.A., and Wallingford, J.B. (2005). Visualizing morphogenesis in the frog embryo. Chapter in Imaging in Neuroscience and Development: a Laboratory Manual. (ed. by R. Yuste and A. Konnerth), Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, NY.
T. Goto*, L. A. Davidson*, and R. E. Keller (2005). Planar cell polarity genes regulate polarized extracellular matrix deposition during frog gastrulation. Current Biology, 15(8): 787–793. (* equal contributions) (See commentary on paper by J.B. Wallingford, 2005, Vertebrate gastrulation: polarity genes control the matrix. Current Biology, 15(11):R414–416)
L. A. Davidson, R. Keller, and D. W. DeSimone (2004). Assembly and remodeling of fibrillar fibronectin extracellular matrix during gastrulation and neurulation in Xenopus laevis. Developmental Dynamics, 231: 888–95.
L. A. Davidson, R. Keller, and D. W. DeSimone (2004). Patterning and tissue movements in a novel explant of the marginal zone of Xenopus laevis. Gene Expression Patterns in Mechanisms of Development, 4: 457–466.