Dr. Karl Lewis joined the Meinig School as an assistant professor in July 2020. Dr. Lewis’s research interests center on understanding the interplay of mechanical cues and biological changes in musculoskeletal tissues. As a trained engineer, Dr. Lewis views the body as a system of sub-systems with a wide range of input and output signals. Cytokines, neurotransmitters, and hormones are some of the signals available for the body to use. Mechanical forces can modulate these signals and are critical for the health of musculoskeletal cells.
With this in mind, Dr. Lewis’s work seeks to understand how the acute sensing mechanisms in musculoskeletal cells relate to tissue-level changes in healthy and disease states. To interrogate these questions, Dr. Lewis works with cutting-edge intravital imaging techniques to observe cell signaling in real time. Using genetically modified mice, he and his collaborators are searching for proteins related to bone growth, development, and disease (i.e. osteoporosis).
Dr. Lewis comes to Cornell most recently from Indiana University School of Medicine, where he worked on two projects with Dr. Alex Robling as a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology. One project investigated the role of neurotransmitters in osteocyte mechanobiology using genetically modified mice bred in-house. The second project utilized intravital fluorescent imaging techniques to observe changes in osteocyte calcium signaling a function of genetic modification or pharmacological intervention.
At Cornell, the Lewis laboratory will continue this research in bone and also develop new intravital imaging techniques for studying mechanotransduction in other musculoskeletal tissues. The lab will interrogate how the acute sensing mechanisms in musculoskeletal cells relate to tissue-level changes in healthy and disease states, with the objective to use this knowledge to identify new targets for therapeutic intervention in musculoskeletal disease. Bone investigations will focus on understanding how bone cells interpret mechanical loading in real time using intravital imaging techniques. The lab will also work to understand how bone interacts with other neighboring tissues in the onset and progression of diseases like osteoarthritis and osteoporosis.
B.S. (Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering Concentration), Temple University, 2011
Ph.D. (Biomedical Engineering, Osteocyte Mechanobiology), The City College of New York, 2017
Postdoc (Osteocyte Mechanobiology, Bone Mechanotransduction), Indiana University School of Medicine, 2020
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A special type of cell, called an osteocyte, may hold the key to some of the mysteries of osteoporosis. A research group led by Karl Lewis, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, is studying... Read more about Lewis Lab investigates intriguing role of osteocytes in bone health
