03/13/2026
By Amanda Vozzo
Physics Colloquium
Date: Tuesday, March 17, 2026
Time: 4 – 5 p.m.
Location: Olsen Hall 503
Seemantini Nadkarni, Associate Professor of Dermatology at Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School will give a talk on “Shedding Light on Tissue Mechanopathology Using Speckle Rheological Microscopy (SHEAR)”
Abstract: Mechanical changes in tissues are a fundamental but often underutilized hallmark of disease. Across a wide range of conditions, including atherosclerosis, blood disorders, cancer, and musculoskeletal disease, pathological progression is accompanied by alterations in tissue mechanical properties. For example, myocardial infarction, the leading cause of death worldwide, frequently results from rupture of mechanically weakened atherosclerotic plaques. Disorders of coagulation similarly manifest as changes in blood clot viscoelasticity, while tumor detection has long relied on mechanical cues such as abnormal tissue stiffness. Increasing evidence further shows that mechanical properties of the tumor microenvironment can actively regulate malignant transformation and cancer progression, independent of biochemical signaling. These insights underscore the crucial need for technologies capable of quantifying tissue biomechanics in situ. In this talk, I will present Speckle Rheological Microscopy (SHEAR), an emerging optical platform that enables rapid, non-contact measurement of tissue viscoelasticity. By analyzing time-varying speckle fluctuations from scattered light, SHEAR quantifies both, the elastic and viscous modulii of biological tissues with high sensitivity. I will highlight recent advances in the development and clinical translation of SHEAR across multiple instrument formats, including optical microscopes, endoscopic systems for minimally invasive procedures, and portable point-of-care devices, demonstrating how biomechanical imaging can open new avenues for disease detection, monitoring, and precision diagnostics. By enabling rapid, non-contact mapping of tissue mechanopathology, SHEAR opens new horizons to investigate the biomechanical signatures of disease, with the potential to transform how we detect, monitor and treast disease pathology.
Bio: Seemantini Nadkarni is an Associate Professor at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School with over 20 years of experience in innovating and translating cutting-edge optical technologies that bridge fundamental science and clinical application. She received her doctorate in Medical Biophysics from the University of Western Ontario, Canada. Nadkarni is the director of the Laboratory for Optical Micromechanics, which specializes in developing novel tools and approaches that access and visualize the micromechanical landscape of tissue to advance diagnostics in hematology, cardiology, cancer research and orthopedics.