Prof. Nada Boustany, together with Prof. Bonnie Firestein (Cell Biology and Neuroscience), received a 3-year $465,000 research grant from the National Science Foundation division of Civil Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation. The project will advance our understanding of the role of mechanotransduction in neuronal development by measuring subcellular forces with molecular tension probes based on fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET). Additional co-PIs include Prof. Joseph Freeman (Rutgers BME) and Prof. Sang-Hyuk Lee (Physiscs and Astronomy and Center for Integrative Proteomics Research). This project is conducted in collaboration with Prof. Brenton Hoffman in the Dept. of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University."