Wayne Brodland, PEng

Wayne Brodland, PEng
Professor Emeritus

Biography

G. Wayne Brodland is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Waterloo.
His research interests lie in mechanics and finite element modelling of embryo development, studying the mechanical causes of malformation birth defects, testing tissue mechanics, and observing the three-dimensional reconstruction of cells, tissues and embryos. Specifically speaking, Professor Brodland studies the mechanics of cell and tissue morphogenesis - the physical forces that drive self-organization of cells, tissues and, ultimately, whole organisms. These processes are important in embryogenesis, regenerative medicine and cancer metastases. Professor Brodland and his team use experiments and computational models to investigate these forces, and have developed advanced computer software and custom test instruments to aid them with their research.
His current sources of research funding are from The Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP), Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE). Additionally, Professor Brodland has several publications that revolve around biomechanics and biomedical engineering and is also a HFSP Program Grant Award holder.

Research Interests

  • embryo mechanics, finite element analysis, robotic microscope, tissue testing, material properties, mechanical testing, Structures, Mechanics & Construction, birth defects, Applied mechanics and stochastic systems, Video force microscopy, Mechanical testing, Computational modeling, Neurulation, Arresting cancer metastasis, Cell and tissue mechanics, Mechanical testing and constitutive equations

Scholarly Research

Cell and tissue biomechanics

Industrial Research

Development of scientific instruments

Education

  • 1987, Postdoctoral Fellow Civil Engineering, University of Waterloo, Canada
  • 1986, Doctorate Civil Engineering, University of Manitoba, Canada
  • 1982, Master's Mechanical Engineering (Biomechanics), University of Manitoba, Canada
  • 1978, Bachelor's Mechanical Engineering, University of Manitoba, Canada

Awards

  • 2007
  • 2006 Distinguished Performance Award
  • 2007 Outstanding Performance Award (OPA)

Selected/Recent Publications

  • Perrone, Matthew C and Veldhuis, Jim H and Brodland, G Wayne, Non-straight cell edges are important to invasion and engulfment as demonstrated by cell mechanics model, Biomechanics and modeling in mechanobiology, 405, 2016
  • Veldhuis, Jim H and Mashburn, David and Hutson, M Shane and Brodland, G Wayne, Practical aspects of the cellular force inference toolkit (CellFIT), Methods in cell biology, 331, 2015
  • Gibson, William T and Rubinstein, Boris Y and Meyer, Emily J and Veldhuis, James H and Brodland, G Wayne and Nagpal, Radhika and Gibson, Matthew C, On the origins of the mitotic shift in proliferating cell layers, Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling, 1, 2014
  • Muñoz, José J and Brodland, G Wayne and Ladoux, Benoit and Trepat, Xavier, Forces driving epithelial wound healing, , , 2014
  • Brugués, Agustí and Anon, Ester and Conte, Vito and Veldhuis, Jim H and Gupta, Mukund and Colombelli, Julien and Muñoz, José J and Brodland, G Wayne and Ladoux, Benoit and Trepat, Xavier, Forces driving epithelial wound healing, Nature Physics, 683, 2014

Graduate studies