About this Research Topic
Our body is under constant mechanical stress from the physical environment, ranging from shear stress caused by blood flow on vessel walls, the tensile and compressive forces exerted on skin and muscles, to the omnipresent forces of gravity on joints and cartilage.
Exposure to such mechanical stress is essential to maintain physiological functions. However, physical stresses are also thought to play a key role in a variety of pathologies including; cancers, cardiovascular diseases, pulmonary diseases, muscular dystrophy, inflammation and infections. These disease processes are governed by alterations in cellular signaling, cell biomechanics and extracellular matrixes in response to the physiological and pathophysiological forces.
Mechanobiology is an emerging field of research at the interface of biology and engineering concerning the effect of the physical environment on biological responses. Like any other field of research, success in elucidating the mechanobiology of different organisms depends on the advancement of tools and techniques that allow for recapitulating the physical stresses to decipher molecular mechanism of mechanotransduction, and also to measure the amount of tension/stress between cellular and subcellular components.
This collection aims to provide an overview over the different technologies that have been developed to apply physical stress on cells and organisms, different modeling approaches that have been used to analyse strains or stresses, and different techniques ranging from molecular biology tools to bioengineering methods to induce and measure the stresses or strains at cellular and subcellular levels. The validation of developed technologies/models/methods as well as provision of benchmark data for evaluating the developed methods will guarantee the advancement of Mechanobiology and maximizing its impact, which will be highlighted in this Research Topic.
Exposure to such mechanical stress is essential to maintain physiological functions. However, physical stresses are also thought to play a key role in a variety of pathologies including; cancers, cardiovascular diseases, pulmonary diseases, muscular dystrophy, inflammation and infections. These disease processes are governed by alterations in cellular signaling, cell biomechanics and extracellular matrixes in response to the physiological and pathophysiological forces.
Mechanobiology is an emerging field of research at the interface of biology and engineering concerning the effect of the physical environment on biological responses. Like any other field of research, success in elucidating the mechanobiology of different organisms depends on the advancement of tools and techniques that allow for recapitulating the physical stresses to decipher molecular mechanism of mechanotransduction, and also to measure the amount of tension/stress between cellular and subcellular components.
This collection aims to provide an overview over the different technologies that have been developed to apply physical stress on cells and organisms, different modeling approaches that have been used to analyse strains or stresses, and different techniques ranging from molecular biology tools to bioengineering methods to induce and measure the stresses or strains at cellular and subcellular levels. The validation of developed technologies/models/methods as well as provision of benchmark data for evaluating the developed methods will guarantee the advancement of Mechanobiology and maximizing its impact, which will be highlighted in this Research Topic.
Keywords: Mechanobiology, molecular/cellular biology, biomaterials, bioengineering, micro/nano technologies, modelling
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