Alexander Dunn

Alex Dunn is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University. His research focuses on understanding how living cells sense mechanical stimuli, with particular interests in stem cell biology and tissue engineering. Dr. Dunn worked as a postdoctoral scholar with James Spudich in the Department of Biochemistry at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He received his Ph.D. at the California Institute of Technology under the direction of Harry Gray, where his work focused on understanding the catalytic mechanism selective C-H bond oxidation by cytochrome P450 enzymes. His work has been recognized with numerous awards, including the Hertz Fellowship, the Burroughs Wellcome Career Award at the Scientific Interface, the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, and the HHMI Faculty Scholar Award.

Academic Appointments

• Associate Professor, Chemical Engineering
• Member, Bio-X
• Member, Cardiovascular Institute
• Member, Maternal & Child Health Research Institute (MCHRI)
• Faculty Fellow, Stanford ChEM-H
• Member, Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute

Honors & Awards

• Teaching Award, Tau Beta Pi (Stanford) (2018)
• Faculty Scholar Award, HHMI (2016)
• New Innovator Award, National Institutes of Health (2010)
• Career Award at the Scientific Interface, Burroughs Wellcome Foundation (2008)
• Postdoctoral Fellowship, American Heart Association (2007)
• Herbert Newby McCoy Award, McCoy family (2003)
• Jane Coffin Childs Fellowship, Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for Medical Research (2003)
• Fannie and John Hertz Fellowship, Fannie and John Hertz Foundation (1998)

Professional Education

PhD, Caltech (2003)

Current Research and Scholarly Interests

The goal of our laboratory is to determine how molecular-scale information encodes the shape and physical properties of cells, tissues, and whole organisms. To do so, we use a combination of sophisticated microscopy, single-molecule biophysics, and theoretical modeling to explore how information propagates upwards across biological length scales. Specific questions we are currently investigating include: 1) How do molecular-scale asymmetries encoded in individual proteins give rise to the emergent physical properties of the cell; and 2) How do cells coordinate their actions to shape organs and tissues? In helping to answer these general questions we hope to understand the physical principles that underlie the construction of complex, multicellular life. We anticipate that this knowledge will be highly relevant to the development of stem-cell-based therapies and to engineering complex, three-dimensional tissues in the laboratory.

Publications

Regulation and dynamics of force transmission at individual cell-matrix adhesion bonds. Science advances Tan, S. J., Chang, A. C., Anderson, S. M., Miller, C. M., Prahl, L. S., Odde, D. J., Dunn, A. R. 2020; 6 (20): eaax0317

Vinculin forms a directionally asymmetric catch bond with F-actin SCIENCE Huang, D. L., Bax, N. A., Buckley, C. D., Weis, W. I., Dunn, A. R. 2017; 357 (6352): 703–6

Energetics and forces in living cells PHYSICS TODAY Dunn, A. R., Price, A. 2015; 68 (2): 27-32

Cell adhesion. The minimal cadherin-catenin complex binds to actin filaments under force. Science Buckley, C. D., Tan, J., Anderson, K. L., Hanein, D., Volkmann, N., Weis, W. I., Nelson, W. J., Dunn, A. R. 2014; 346 (6209)

Molecular tension sensors report forces generated by single integrin molecules in living cells. Nano letters Morimatsu, M., Mekhdjian, A. H., Adhikari, A. S., Dunn, A. R. 2013; 13 (9): 3985-3989

Spatially controlled stem cell differentiation via morphogen gradients: A comparison of static and dynamic microfluidic platforms JOURNAL OF VACUUM SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY A Cui, K. W., Engel, L., Dundes, C. E., Nguyen, T. C., Loh, K. M., Dunn, A. R. 2020; 38 (3)

Scaling up single-cell mechanics to multicellular tissues - the role of the intermediate filament-desmosome network. Journal of cell science Broussard, J. A., Jaiganesh, A., Zarkoob, H., Conway, D. E., Dunn, A. R., Espinosa, H. D., Janmey, P. A., Green, K. J. 2020; 133 (6)

Tuning the Antigen Density Requirement for CAR T Cell Activity. Cancer discovery Majzner, R. G., Rietberg, S. P., Sotillo, E., Dong, R., Vachharajani, V. T., Labanieh, L., Myklebust, J. H., Kadapakkam, M., Weber, E. W., Tousley, A. M., Richards, R. M., Heitzeneder, S., Nguyen, S. M., Wiebking, V., Theruvath, J., Lynn, R. C., Xu, P., Dunn, A. R., Vale, R. D., Mackall, C. L. 2020

Perpendicular alignment of lymphatic endothelial cells in response to spatial gradients in wall shear stress. Communications biology Michalaki, E., Surya, V. N., Fuller, G. G., Dunn, A. R. 2020; 3 (1): 57

Limited Dishevelled/Axin oligomerization determines efficiency of Wnt/β-catenin signal transduction. eLife Kan, W., Enos, M. D., Korkmazhan, E., Muennich, S., Chen, D. H., Gammons, M. V., Vasishtha, M., Bienz, M., Dunn, A. R., Skiniotis, G., Weis, W. I. 2020; 9

Binding partner- and force-promoted changes in alphaE-catenin conformation probed by native cysteine labeling. Scientific reports Terekhova, K., Pokutta, S., Kee, Y. S., Li, J., Tajkhorshid, E., Fuller, G., Dunn, A. R., Weis, W. I. 2019; 9 (1): 15375

Oscillatory cortical forces promote three dimensional cell intercalations that shape the murine mandibular arch. Nature communications Tao, H., Zhu, M., Lau, K., Whitley, O. K., Samani, M., Xiao, X., Chen, X. X., Hahn, N. A., Liu, W., Valencia, M., Wu, M., Wang, X., Fenelon, K. D., Pasiliao, C. C., Hu, D., Wu, J., Spring, S., Ferguson, J., Karuna, E. P., Henkelman, R. M., Dunn, A., Huang, H., Ho, H. H., Atit, R., Goyal, S., Sun, Y., Hopyan, S. 2019; 10 (1): 1703

Lymphatic endothelial cell calcium pulses are sensitive to spatial gradients in wall shear stress MOLECULAR BIOLOGY OF THE CELL Surya, V. N., Michalaki, E., Fuller, G. G., Dunn, A. R. 2019; 30 (7): 923–31

Lymphatic endothelial cell calcium pulses are sensitive to spatial gradients in wall shear stress. Molecular biology of the cell Surya, V. N., Michalaki, E., Fuller, G. G., Dunn, A. R. 2019: mbcE18100618

Myosin-II mediated traction forces evoke localized Piezo1-dependent Ca2+ flickers. Communications biology Ellefsen, K. L., Holt, J. R., Chang, A. C., Nourse, J. L., Arulmoli, J., Mekhdjian, A. H., Abuwarda, H., Tombola, F., Flanagan, L. A., Dunn, A. R., Parker, I., Pathak, M. M. 2019; 2 (1): 298

Mechanical loading of desmosomes depends on themagnitude and orientation of external stress. Nature communications Price, A. J., Cost, A., UngewiSS, H., Waschke, J., Dunn, A. R., Grashoff, C. 2018; 9 (1): 5284

Mechanobiology: ubiquitous and useful. Molecular biology of the cell Dunn, A. R. 2018; 29 (16): 1917–18

DACH1 stimulates shear stress-guided endothelial cell migration and coronary artery growth through the CXCL12-CXCR4 signaling axis GENES & DEVELOPMENT Chang, A. H., Raftrey, B. C., D'Amato, G., Surya, V. N., Poduri, A., Chen, H. I., Goldstone, A. B., Woo, J., Fuller, G. G., Dunn, A. R., Red-Horse, K. 2017; 31 (13): 1308–24

A cytoskeletal clutch mediates cellular force transmission in a soft, 3D extracellular matrix. Molecular biology of the cell Owen, L. M., Adhikari, A. S., Patel, M., Grimmer, P., Leijnse, N., Kim, M. C., Notbohm, J., Franck, C., Dunn, A. R. 2017

Integrin-mediated traction force enhances paxillin molecular associations and adhesion dynamics that increase the invasiveness of tumor cells into a three-dimensional extracellular matrix. Molecular biology of the cell Mekhdjian, A. H., Kai, F., Rubashkin, M. G., Prahl, L. S., Przybyla, L. M., McGregor, A. L., Bell, E. S., Barnes, J. M., DuFort, C. C., Ou, G., Chang, A. C., Cassereau, L., Tan, S. J., Pickup, M. W., Lakins, J. N., Ye, X., Davidson, M. W., Lammerding, J., Odde, D. J., Dunn, A. R., Weaver, V. M. 2017; 28 (11): 1467-1488