About

Ryan Petrie, PhD, received a BS in biochemistry from the University of Victoria in 1997, a MS in immune cell signaling from the University of Calgary in 2002, and a PhD in cell biology from McGill University in 2008. Following a research fellowship at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), he opened his lab at Drexel in 2015. At the NIH, Petrie used a combination of live cell imaging and biophysical measurements in single cells to discover a new pressure-based mechanism of cell movement. His lab continues to refine this nuclear-piston model of pressure-driven cell migration in the Department of Biology.

Physical mechanisms of 3D cell motility – R35 NIGMS grant award

In 2025, Professor Petrie was selected by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) for an Outstanding Investigator Award (NIH R35 grant) to support and extend his work with "Physical mechanisms of 3D cell motility." This NIH R35 grant, which recognizes primary investigators who have achieved significant research accomplishments and productivity, will allow Petrie to extend his exploration of how single cells move through three-dimensional tissue environments in physiological processes like wound healing and metastatic tumor cells. This research seeks to understand how cell behavior and architecture change in response to the structure of the material they are moving through, which in turn might lead to the development of new therapeutic strategies to control the movement of normal and abnormal cells.

Even when we are standing still, the cells in our bodies are going places. It is now clear that an individual cell can change how it moves in response to the material surrounding it. Petrie's lab is interested in understanding how the structure of the three-dimensional (3D) extracellular matrix dictates the molecular and physical mechanisms driving cell motility. For example, lab members discovered human fibroblasts moving through a cross-linked 3D matrix pull their nucleus forward like a piston to increase intracellular pressure and drive protrusion of the leading edge.

Using a variety of biochemical, biophysical, and live cell imaging approaches, the Petrie lab aims to understand how intracellular pressure is controlled by actomyosin contractility in migrating cells in response to matrix structure. Further, the lab seeks to establish if the intracellular pressure generation machinery in metastatic cells is abnormal compared to primary fibroblasts and test the hypothesis that defective pressure regulation promotes cancer cell invasion into 3D extracellular matrix.

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Organizational Affiliations

Biology, College of Arts and Sciences, Drexel University

Past Affiliations

National Institutes of Health (United States, Bethesda) - NIH

Education

Biochemistry
BSc, University of Victoria (Canada, Victoria)
Immunology
MSc, University of Calgary (Canada, Calgary) - UoC
Anatomy and Cell Biology
PhD, McGill University (Canada, Montreal)