Physics (Internal)
Research Interests:
Rama Bansil is Professor Emerita of Physics and Materials Science and Engineering at Boston University. She studied at Delhi University, India obtaining B.Sc (Physics Honors) in 1967 and M.Sc (Physics) in 1969. She received her Ph.D. in Physics from University of Rochester in 1975 and spent a year as a Vinton Hayes Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University followed by a year as a Research Associate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Health Sciences and Technology Program. Professor Bansil joined the Physics Department of Boston University in 1977 as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1984 and Full Professor in 1997, becoming Professor Emerita in 2018.
Prof. Bansil was awarded a Junior Faculty Fellowship by the American Cancer Society (1979-82) and was a Fellow and Science Scholar at Bunting Institute, Radcliffe College, Harvard University (1993-94). She spent a sabbatical as a Visiting Professor at Harvard Medical School in Fall 2006 and served as a Program Director for the Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers Program in the Division of Materials Research of National Science Foundation during 2007-2009. She has given many public lectures to general scientific audiences and was a distinguished Lecturer for Sigma Xi. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society.
Prof. Bansil’s research interests are in Biophysics and Soft Matter/ Polymer Physics. Her work in soft matter was focused on studying gelation and phase transitions in gels and other polymers using light, X-ray and neutron scattering techniques and simulations.
The research in Biological Physics focuses on understanding the biophysical properties of gastric mucin, the glycoprotein that is responsible for the protective and viscoelastic function of the mucus lining of the stomach. Bansil and her collaborators showed that gelation of mucin at low pH is an important factor in protecting the stomach from digesting itself. The current project (funded by NIH) focuses on how acid is transported across the mucus barrier and how Helicobacter Pylori, the bacterium which causes gastritis, gastric ulcers, and can lead to stomach cancer, gets across the mucus gel to colonize on the epithelial cell surface of the stomach. Using rheological and time-resolved optical microscopic imaging methods they have shown that the urease mediated hydrolysis of urea by H. pylori triggers a gel to sol transition of mucin enabling it to swim across the mucus barrier. Their work evaluates the role of bacterial cell shape in swimming and in colonizing on the epithelial surface by combining live-cell microscopic tracking experiments with hydrodynamic modeling and simulation. They apply microfluidic methods to investigate the chemotaxis of H. pylori in chemical and pH gradients. The research program involves multidisciplinary collaborations with scientists and clinicians in USA and abroad. Prof. Bansil has trained numerous graduate and undergraduate students in Physics, Chemistry, Molecular and Cell Biology, Biomedical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering.
Links to recent publications
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1311-1749
Education:
- Ph.D. in Physics, University of Rochester
- M.Sc in Physics, Delhi University
- B.Sc with honors in Physics, Delhi University
Honors/Awards:
- Fellow of the American Physical Society