Cellular mechanics and mechanobiology

Modelling of cellular behaviour in disease.

Our Group’s mission is to develop advanced computational and experimental models that provide new understanding of cell and tissue remodelling in cancer and immune-mediated disease, motivating novel mechano-therapeutics and treatment strategies.

• June 2025 – Dr Eoin McEvoy, Thomas Hayes, and Irish Senthilkumar deliver podium presentations at ESB and ESMC 2025.

• March 2025 – Orlaith spent the month at the University of Zaragoza, Spain, collaborating with the m²be lab, who specialise in microfluidic devices for cell migration studies.

• January 2025 – The group delivered presentations at the Bioengineering in Ireland conference, 2025. Congratulations to Irish Senthilkumar for being selected as a finalist for the Engineers Ireland Biomedical Research Medal for making a significant contribution to the field of biomedical engineering research.

• November 2024 – Matteo Simeone joins the group as a PhD researcher on the ERC project, developing biophysical models to study cancer growth.

• October 2024 – Dr McEvoy is presented with the President’s Award for Research Excellence (Early-Career Researcher)

• October 2024 – Orlaith McSweeney joins as a PhD researcher on the ERC project, investigating cell biomechanics through microfluidic systems and predictive modelling.

• September 2024 – Charlotte Turner joins as a PhD researcher on the MechanoGAP project, developing breast cancer spheroid models to investigate growth and resistance.

• June 2024 – Dr Raja Vadivelu joins the group as a postdoctoral researcher, working on an ERC-funded project to develop breast cancer organoids to study the mechanobiology of resistance.

• June 2024 – Irish Senthilkumar and Thomas Hayes deliver podium presentations at SB3C 2024 and ESB 2024.

• April 2024 – David Symes joins as a research associate on an industry project with Ceroflo, jointly funded through the SFI Spokes programme with CÚRAM.

• October 2023 – Brian Harkin joins the group as a PhD researcher on a lifETIME (Engineered Tissues for Discovery, Industry and Medicine) CDT fellowship. This programme is a partnership between the University of Glasgow, the University of Birmingham, Aston University and CÚRAM – Science Foundation Ireland.

• Sept 2023 – Dr McEvoy awarded European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant to investigate the mechanobiology of tumour growth and resistance: https://www.sfi.ie/research-news/news/erc-starting-grant/

• July 2023 – Nicole Hannon joins as a Research Assistant to work on finite element models of mucosa membranes, a collaboration with AVeta Medical funded by Enterprise Ireland.

• May 2023 – Amanda Arnold comes from the University of Notre Dame as a visiting researcher on the Naughton REU programme to explore crosstalk between immune cells in regulating myelination processes.

• March 2023 – Dr Muhammad Qasim joins the group as a postdoctoral researcher, developing computational and in vitro models of immune cell mechanobiology for MS immunotherapy.

• February 2023 – Alessandro Arduino joins for 3 months as visiting PhD researcher from the University of Padova to work on finite element models of single cell growth.

• December 2022 – Dr Vatsal Kumar successfully defends his thesis and passes his PhD viva. Congrats Vatsal!

• September 2022 – NUI Galway formally changes name to University of Galway.

• July 2022 – Thomas Hayes awarded a competitive College of Science and Engineering Postgraduate Scholarship by the University of Galway to support his work on multi-scale models for muscular atrophy.

• July 2022 – Dr McEvoy co-chairs symposium on “Mechanics of Biological Cells and Active Tissues” at the 11th European Solid Mechanics Conference (ESMC 2022) at the University of Galway.

• May 2022 – Vatsal Kumar presents his PhD work as a finalist in the Engineers Ireland Biomedical Research Medal competition at the 27^th Annual Conference of the Section of Bioengineering of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland (BinI 2022).

• March 2022 – Dr McEvoy awarded funding through the North South Research Programme (Higher Education Authority) in collaboration with Prof Denise Fitzgerald (QUB). This project will provide new fundamental insight into the dependence of regulatory T cell induction on physical forces and advance current understanding of tissue regeneration in Multiple Sclerosis.

• March 2022 – Irish Senthilkumar successfully awarded a prestigious Irish Research Council (IRC) Postgraduate Research Scholarship to support his work on the development of advanced agent-based simulation of tissue growth.

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