Georgetown College. Georgetown University.

While Dr. Jeffrey Urbach’s research is based in physics, his work involves scientists across the Georgetown community and around the world. Recent projects have involved studying brain and breast cancer cells, the Giardia parasite, and shaking sand.

Dr. Urbach is interested primarily in dynamical systems. “Essentially,” he explains, “this means complicated things that move in interesting or unique ways.” A dynamical system might be a weather pattern moving through the atmosphere or it can be a cancer cell migrating through the body. The red spot on Jupiter is another example of a unique dynamical system. With all the turbulence occurring in Jupiter’s atmosphere, how does the spot maintain its form?

Dr. Urbach has always been fascinated by the transport procedures of dynamical systems, and particularly their potential bio-medical applications. The opportunity to collaborate with others and work with Georgetown’s Medical Center is a major part of what attracted him to Georgetown. Working with funding from the the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and Professor Paul Roepe’s Lab, Dr. Urbach has been able to acquire and customize a spinning disc confocal microscope. The microscope uses special focusing capabilities to block out and focus light and perform "optical sectioning" (an optical version of an MRI). With it Dr. Urbach’s Dynamics Imaging Lab is able to produce crisp, detailed, three-dimensional images at uniquely high speeds. This allows scientists to see dynamics at work, which, at best, would previously appear blurred in conventional images.

For scientists like Dr. Susette Mueller, Associate Professor in the Department of Oncology at Georgetown University Medical School, working with Dr. Urbach to study the progression of breast cancer in the body, these three-dimensional images are being used to answer questions about what happens in the body when tumor cells migrate or metastasize. “It’s both a physical and a biochemical process,” says Urbach. “The cell must push though its environment to spread the cancer.” Using images from the confocal microscope, Urbach and Mueller are exploring the sequence of events that occurs with the movement of cancer cells, trying to identify steps in the process that might be controlled, and investigating if there are genetic factors at work which cause a cell to migrate.

Similar collaborative work took place between Dr. Urbach and former Georgetown researcher Dr. Geoff Goodhill, now at the University of Queensland in Australia. As a biologist, Dr. Goodhill came to Urbach looking for input on his research in cell motility and neural pathways within the brain. Neurons are extremely sensitive to chemical signals sent out by other areas of the brain; Goodhill wanted to know how the process of diffusion and the development of neural pathways occurred. Signaling questions are also being explored with Dr. Herb Geller at the NIH. Drs. Urbach and Geller are exploring the ways in which spinal cord regrowth is inhibited after injury, looking to see if there are ways to promote growth.

Dr. Urbach is also currently working with Dr. Heidi Elmendorf, Associate Professor of Biology, investigating the ways that the Giardia parasite attaches to the intestine. Elmendorf and Urbach are experimenting with ways to knock the parasites off the intestine and facilitate eliminating them from the host. So far, they’ve tested moving the Giardia with laser tweezers (a device that uses focused light to push an object from area to another) and they’re testing Giardia attachment when it is placed in a flow. If the force of the flow increases, can it knock the Giardia off the intestine? How much force is needed? Will certain drugs impact the Giardia’s ability to attach? These are the kinds of questions that Dr. Urbach’s expertise and unique microscope are helping to address.

Using his lab equipment, his experience with interpreting images, and his knowledge of complicated physical systems Dr. Urbach continues to collaborate with a wide variety of scientists on the physical components of the environment they’re exploring. He also works with his own students on research with more straightforward physics applications, is Co-Director of the Program on Science in the Public Interest, and teaches both Vibrations Fluids and Waves and Materials Physics.

To learn more about work being done at Georgetown targeting Giardia, please refer to our previous article on Dr. Singer’s work.

To learn more about work being done at Georgetown targeting Malaria, please refer to our previous article on Dr. Roepe’s work.

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