Alex J. Loosley
Contact: Phone (Lab): 401-863-1405 |
 Alex Loosley: Biking next to the Charles River, Boston |
Bio
Alex Loosley hails from Simon Fraser University (SFU) where he earned a B.Sc. in Physics and a minor in Business. During his senior year, he studied the role of positive feedback in biological oscillators with Prof. Eldon Emberly. Alex recently completed his Ph.D at Brown University under supervision and tutelage from Prof. Jay Tang's and Prof. Jonathan Reichner studying cellular traction forces and effects of substrate rigidity on cell motility and function.
Education
Simon Fraser University (2003-2008) - B.Sc. - Physics (+ business minor)
Brown University (2009-2014) - Sc.M / Ph.D. - Physics
Research Interests:
Mechanobiology and Mechanical Models of Cell Locomotion
Nonlinear Dynamics in Biological Systems
Posters
- BPS Annual Meeting @ San Francisco, 2014.
Quantification of Directional Motility by a Characteristic Directionality Time. - BPS Mechanobiology @ MDIBL, 2013.
Human Neutrophil Chemotaxis is a Function of Matrix Composition and Stiffness.
Publications
- Alex J. Loosley, Xian M. O'Brien, Jonathan S. Reichner, and Jay X. Tang.
Describing Directional Cell Migration with a Characteristic Directionality Time
PLoS ONE, Accepted (2015) - Xian M. O'Brien, Alex J. Loosley, Katie E. Oakley, Jay X. Tang, and Jonathan S. Reichner.
Technical Advance: Introducing a novel metric, directionality time, to quantify human neutrophil chemotaxis as a function of matrix composition and stiffness.
J Leukocyte Biol, 95: 993-1004 (2014) - Alex J. Loosley and Jay X. Tang.
Stick-slip motion and elastic coupling in crawling cells.
Phys Rev E, 86: 031908 (2012)
Data Projects
- ML Infinity
- Local Chicago Crime Mapper and Cleanup Benifit Predictor - An interactive Chicago crime and housing price plotting tool that places a dollar figure on the value of improving crime locally.
Code (on GitHub)
- Directed Migration Class - used for random walk simulations and kinematic analysis of cell motion
Condensed Resume
Available Here
Videos and Raw Data