Biophysics and Mechanical Properties of Cells

Dear Colleagues,

Cells in our body are subjected to mechanical stresses and can sense these mechanical stimuli and actively respond to them by triggering biomechanical reactions that include cell growth, proliferation, differentiation, motility, and even apoptosis. Furthermore, cell mechanics studies have shown that changes in cell and nuclear mechanics are hallmarks of many diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, laminopathies, cancer, infectious diseases, and fragility in aging. In this regard, mechanobiology studies the essential roles that these physical factors play via mechanotransduction. However, this field needs reliable and reproducible data of cell mechanical properties, but reported values of cell stiffness and/or viscosity vary considerably, which suggests differences in how the results of different methods are obtained or analyzed by different groups.

Therefore, we believe that the present offers an excellent opportunity to gain a better understanding of these fundamental concepts, and we would like to give researchers in many interdisciplinary areas of research—such as biophysics, biomedicine, tissue engineering, and materials science—the opportunity to address and illustrate the complementarity of biophysical and biological approaches and how mechanical properties influence cells' behavior with their surrounding microenvironment, both in healthy conditions and in diseases. Recent advances in developing novel techniques and tools for cell mechanics characterization and the challenges associated with their implementation will also be presented.

Prof. Dr. Orfeo Sbaizero
Guest Editor

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