Brenton D Hoffman, Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Center for Biomolecular and Tissue Engineering

Contact Info:

Office Location:	1361 CIEMAS
Office Phone:	(919) 660-5154
Email Address:
Web Page:	https://sites.google.com/site/hoffmanlabatduke/

Teaching (Spring 2026):

• BME 306L.001, CELLULAR ENGINEERING Synopsis

  Wilkinson 126, MW 01:25 PM-02:40 PM

• BME 306L.01L, CELLULAR ENGINEERING Synopsis

  Teer 0015, Th 01:25 PM-04:25 PM

• BME 306L.02L, CELLULAR ENGINEERING Synopsis

  Teer 0015, Th 04:40 PM-07:40 PM

• BME 306L.03L, CELLULAR ENGINEERING Synopsis

  Teer 0015, Th 10:05 AM-01:05 PM

Education:

Postdoctoral Fellow	University of Virginia	2011
PhD	University of Pennsylvania	2007
BS	Lehigh University	2001

Specialties:

Biological Materials
Polymer and Protein Engineering
Cardiovascular
Tissue Repair, Tissue Engineering

Research Interests:

Dr. Hoffman’s research focuses on understanding, on a molecular level, how mechanical and chemical cues from the environment are detected, integrated, and manipulated by cells to dictate physiological and patho-physiological responses important in vascular biology.

Areas of Interest:

Mechanotransduction
Micro-environment sensing
Biophysics of cardiovascular disease states
Cell mechanics

Representative Publications   (More Publications)

1. Goguen, B. N. and Hoffman, B. D. and Sellers, J. R. and Schwartz, M. A. and Imperiali, B., Light-Triggered Myosin Activation for Probing Dynamic Cellular Processes, Angewandte Chemie-International Edition, vol. 50 no. 25 (2011), pp. 5666-5669
2. Hoffman, B. D. and Grashoff, C. and Schwartz, M. A., Dynamic molecular processes mediate cellular mechanotransduction, Nature, vol. 475 no. 7356 (2011), pp. 316-323  [abs]
3. Grashoff, C.* and Hoffman, B. D.* and Brenner, M. D. and Zhou, R. B. and Parsons, M. and Yang, M. T. and McLean, M. A. and Sligar, S. G. and Chen, C. S. and Ha, T. and Schwartz, M. A., Measuring mechanical tension across vinculin reveals regulation of focal adhesion dynamics, Nature, vol. 466 no. 7303 (2010), pp. 263-U143  [abs]
4. Hoffman, B. D. and Crocker, J. C., Cell Mechanics: Dissecting the Physical Responses of Cells to Force, Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering, vol. 11 (2009), pp. 259-288  [abs]
5. Hoffman, B. D. and Massiera, G. and Crocker, J. C., Fragility and mechanosensing in a thermalized cytoskeleton model with forced protein unfolding, Physical Review E, vol. 76 no. 5 (2007)  [abs]
6. Van Citters, K. M. and Hoffman, B. D. and Massiera, G. and Crocker, J. C., The role of F-actin and myosin in epithelial cell rheology, Biophysical Journal, vol. 91 no. 10 (2006), pp. 3946-3956  [abs]
7. Hoffman, B. D.* and Massiera, G.* and Van Citters, K. M. and Crocker, J. C., The consensus mechanics of cultured mammalian cells, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 103 no. 27 (2006), pp. 10259-10264  [abs]
8. Lau, A. W. C. and Hoffman, B. D. and Davies, A. and Crocker, J. C. and Lubensky, T. C., Microrheology, stress fluctuations, and active behavior of living cells, Physical Review Letters, vol. 91 no. 19 (2003)  [abs]