Nimesh Chahare's CV

Current position

• Postdoctoral Reseach Scientist with Prof. Nandan Nerurkar
• Morphogenesis and Developmental Biomechanics Lab (MDBL)
• Columbia University in the city of New York

Research Interests

• Biology
  • Mechanobiology, and Developmental Biology
• Mechanics
  • Continuum mechanics, Material testing, and Biophysics

Contact

Come say HI! to me on internet.

Work Email / Gmail /LinkedIn / GitHub / Twitter

👨‍🎓 Education

Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain 2023

Master of Engineering. in Mechanical Engineering
Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India 2016

Bachelor of Technology in Mechanical Engineering
Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur, India, 2014

📰 Publications

Patents

Pullarkat, P., Vishwakarma, R., Gundiah, N., and Chahare, N. R., A microscope mountable fluid shear device. Indian patent, IN201641029893A, pg 275/677 Published 2018-03-09.

Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals

Equal contrubition is indicated by +

Andreu, I. + , Granero-Moya, I. + , Chahare, N. R., Clein, K., Jordàn, M. M., Beedle, A. E., … & Roca-Cusachs, P. (2022). Mechanical force application to the nucleus regulates nucleocytoplasmic transport. Nature Cell Biology

Andreu, I. + , Falcones, B. + , Hurst, S., Chahare, N., Quiroga, X., Le Roux, A. L., … & Roca-Cusachs, P. (2021). The force loading rate drives cell mechanosensing through both reinforcement and cytoskeletal softening. Nature communications, 12(1), 1-12.

Chatterjee, A., Chahare, N. R., Kondaiah, P., & Gundiah, N. (2021). Role of Fiber Orientations in the Mechanics of Bioinspired Fiber-Reinforced Elastomers. Soft Robotics, 8(6), 640-650.

Kundanati, L., Chahare, N. R., Jaddivada, S., Karkisaval, A. G., Sridhar, R., Pugno, N. M., & Gundiah, N. (2020). Cutting mechanics of wood by beetle larval mandibles. Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials, 112, 104027.

🎤 Conferences

Chahare, N. R., Ouzeri, A., Golde, T., Wilson, T., Roca-cusachs, P., Arroyo, M., and Trepat, X. “ Harnessing active viscoelasticity for synthetic epithelial morphogenesis.” German Physics Society, Dresden, Germany. March 26-31, 2023

Chahare, N. R., Ouzeri, A., Golde, T., Wilson, T. Arroyo, M., and Trepat, X. “Shaping epithelia through buckling in pressure-controlled tissue.” World congress of biomechanics, Taipei, Taiwan. July 10-14, 2022

Chahare, N. R., Ouzeri, A., Golde, T., Wilson, T. Arroyo, M., and Trepat, X. “Synthetic epithelial morphogenesis through controlled stretching and buckling.” EMBL-IBEC Conference, Engineering multicellular systems, Barcelona, Spain. June 08-10, 2022

Chahare, N. R., Ouzeri, A., Golde, T., Wilson, T. Arroyo, M., and Trepat, X. “Synthetic epithelial morphogenesis through controlled stretching and buckling.” EMBO-EMBL Symposium, Mechanobiology in development and disease, Heidelberg, Germany. May 15–18, 2022

Chatterjee, A., Chahare, N. R., Kulkarni, A., Kondaiah, P., and Gundiah, N. “Design of adynamic cell stretcher to quantify responses of fibroblasts to cyclic stretching and TGF-β.”5th International Conference on Computational and Mathematical Biomedical Engineering,Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. April 10–12, 2017

Satone, V., Chahare, N. R., and Padole, P. “Design of pedal operated behda crackingmachine using flywheel motor.” Association for Machines and Mechanisms’ IndustrialProblems on Machines and Mechanisms (IPRoMM), Nagpur, India. Dec 22–23, 2016

Abhijith, K. G., Chahare, N. R., Kundanati, L., and Gundiah, N. “Mechanics of the Cuticleof Wood Boring Insects.” Structural Integrity Conference and Exhibition (SICE), Bengaluru,India. July 4–6, 2016

👨‍💻 Research experience

Postdoctoral research scientist, Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University

Adviser: Prof. Nandan Nerurkar, May 2024- Present

Mechanics of morphogenesis of embryonic brain development

PhD student and Postdoctoral researcher, Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia, and UPC

Adviser: Prof. Xavier Trepat and Prof. Marino Arroyo, Aug 2017– May 2024

Thesis: Mechanics of epithelial layers subjected to controlled pressure and tension

• Designed a microfluidic chip to control epithelial shapes and pressure.
• Performed rheological study with inflated epithelial monolayers to understand actomyosin cortex remodelling.
• Discovered a new method to generate epithelial folds via mechanical phenomena of buckling.

Computational tool for analysing nuclear to cytoplasmic transport

• Working in collaboration with Prof. Pere Roca-Cusachs and Ion Andreu, developed a MATLAB script to calculate import and export rate of mechanosensitive protien.
• Developed a fitting algorithm to elucidate protein mobility with Fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP).
• Utilized an elegant system of differential equations to analyse data from Fluorescence Loss in Photobleaching (FLIP).

Analysis of force loading rates associated with cell mechanosensing

• Working in collaboration with Prof. Pere Roca-Cusachs and Victor Gonzalez-Tarrago, developed a MATLAB script for analysing atomic force microscopy data from JPK software raw data.
• Analysed timeseries data from AFM experiments to determine detachment force.
• Analysed optical tweezer experiments by fiting curves piecewise linearly to calculate stiffness of the cells.

Project Associate, Biomechanics Lab, Indian Institute of Science

Adviser: Prof. Namrata Gundiah, July 2016–March 2017

Developing constitutive model of Fiber Reinforced Elastomers (FRE)

• Computed stresses and strains from uniaxial and biaxial stretching experiments of Polydimethylsiloxane Fibre Reinforced Elastomer.
• Modeled experimental results using hyperelastic constitutive equation.
• Performed constrained optimization using custom built MATLAB program for fitting the experimental results.

Masters, Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Science

Adviser: Prof. Namrata Gundiah, August 2014–June 2016

Thesis: Design and fabrication of miniature shear device for cell mechanics

• Designed a cost effective system capable of applying uniform shear on culture cells along with real time visualization using fluorescence microscopy.
• Implemented trajectory generation filter based control system in the shear device electronics using MATLAB and Arduino programming.
• Calibrated the device using fluorescence microscopy and traction force microscopy to test for uniform shear flow conditions.

Finite element analysis of coffee white stem borer (CWSB) mandible

• Created geometry of insect mandible from tomography data using image processing and CAD modeling.
• Stress and displacement distribution on mandible during wood boring were computed using commercial FEA package, ABAQUS.
• Stresses on the mandible were used to examine the morphological adaptations that provide distinct mechanical advantages to the insect for cutting purposes.

Undergraduate, Mechanical Engineering, VNIT

Adviser: Prof. Pramod Padole, May 2013–April 2014

Thesis: Design and Fabrication of a Hirda (Terminalia chebula) Cracking Machine

• The project involved solving problem of Indian tribal population dealing with processing of hirda fruit for medicinal applications.
• Built a machine to separate seed from the fruit called Hirda, by crushing the fruit between two rollers. Use of machine led to lower processing time, higher output and minimal manual labour.

📓 Mentoring experience

Mentoring Kayla Williamson, undergraduate student at Columbia Biomedical engineering, for designing experimental setups enabling long term imaging of early chick embryo, 2024

Mentored Pau Pujol, a summer student, with Thomas Wilson, in developing algorithms to segment 3D microscopy data, 2024

Mentored Thomas Wilson, PhD student with Prof. Trepat in developing microfluidic device for light sheet microscopy, 2021-2024

Mentored Gavin McQuarrie, student from University of Glasgow, jointly with Anabel-lise Le Roux to calibrate and develop stretch system, 2021

Undertook Alexandre Garcia-Duran as summer student in University of Barcelona Intership project of characterizing stiffness of PDMS and developing a Microfluidic device for stretching cells/tissues, 2021

Trained two high school students in a project related to 3D epithelia at Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia with Treball de Recerca program, 2017.

💼 Professional experience

Project Associate, Biomechanics Lab, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, April 2016- April 2017.

Consultant, Macrophysiology Lab, Indian Institute of Science: April–May 2017

• Developing a lizard bite force sensor.
• Fabricated the device with miniature load cell as a force sensor to measure bite force of the lizards.

Intern, Tata Motors, May–June 2012 Department of Safety, Tata Indica plant, Pune, India

🏆 Accomplishments

Awards and Honors

Won the best poster prize at 15th IBEC SYMPOSIUM on Bioengineering for Active Ageing, Barcelona, Spain 2022.

All India Rank 362 (99.8 percentile) out of 185,578 in Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering in 2014.

Received second prize for Best paper presentation in Association for Machines and Mechanisms’ Industrial Problems on Machines and Mechanisms (IPRoMM), Nagpur, India, 2016.

Bagged 22nd position in national level presentation competition for future transportation solution, TATA MOTORS’ MIND ROVER, 2013.

Grants

International travel grant for attending winter school on Quantitative Systems Biology at International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS), Bengaluru, India 2019.

Awarded scholarship by Ministry of Human resource and development, India for M.E. 2014-16.

In press

2023 Invited to be on panel discussion on subject of “Why scientists should care about art?” Roundtable discussion was in Catalan link

2022 Interviewed for European Commision funded project, Mechanocontrol, Talked about the inventing novel microfluidic devices. link

👨‍🔧 Technical skills

Cell Biology and Microscopy

Spinning disk confocal microscopy, Airy Scan Confocal microscopy, light and fluorescence microscopy. Light sheet microscopy.

Photobleaching techniques in Fluorescence recovery after Photobleaching (FRAP) and FluorescenceLoss in Photobleaching (FLIP).

Cell culture, Protein micropatterning techniques, and Elastomer preparation, Hydrogel preparation.

Programming

MATLAB, R, Python, Maple, Wolfram Mathematica, HTML, LATEX, Markdown and Arduino IDE.

Design and Analysis

SolidWorks, Inkscape, Adobe Illustrator, SolidEdge, Cinema4D and Keyshot.

ImageJ, AMIRA, ABAQUS, Hypermesh, and COMSOL.

Mechanical and Material Testing

Dynamic mechanical spectroscopy (DMA, TA Instruments), microindentation (CSM Micro-HardnessTester), 3D printing, and bioreactors (planar biaxial stretcher and shear device).

🤹️ Activities

Responsibilities

• Active in organizing committee at Columbia Postdoctoral Workers, UAW Local 4100. 2024-Present
• Convenor of International Epithelial Mechanics Fan Club. 2023-Present
• Managed data servers (synology and magnetic tape drive system) in the Prof. Trepat’s lab. 2019-2024
• Member of PhD committee at IBEC. 2018-2019

💬 Languages

Native   : Marathi, Hindi, and English
B1.2      : Catalan
A2         : Spanish