iMechanica - Thoughts on Integration of Biomechanics and Applied Mechanics - Comments

Innovation in medical training for scientists

MichelleLOyen — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 07:37:29 -0500

Engineers and mechanicians interested in medical problems will find interesting this recent commentary from Nature Immunology concerned with medical training for non-clinicians working on medical problems. The article details a recently-developed course at Stanford called "Introduction to Medicine" that introduces scientists and engineers to many aspects of a single disease, in this case study, diabetes mellitus. Following the course, students had increased knowledge of the disease, but perhaps more importantly the course resulted in several provisional patents for course projects! This is an interesting model for considering the teaching of medicine within non-medical PhD programs.

(Many thanks to author R. Busch--now in Cambridge--for drawing this to my attention!)

New Journal Details

Dean Eastbury — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 07:05:51 -0500

As Publisher of JMBBM (www.elsevier.com/locate/jmbbm) I confirm that we will have the journal indexed by Medline. The earliest this can be is early 2009 since Medline insist on at least four issues being published before they take up any new publication

New journal details

David Taylor — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 03:35:51 -0500

Yes, the new journal will be Medline indexed. As regards searching the literature, I find that SCOPUS covers my needs pretty well now, for both mechanics and medical journals. It doesn't find everything but it doesn't seem to miss any of the serious journals.

New biomechanics journal details

MichelleLOyen — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 13:33:39 -0500

I posted the details and website link for this new "Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials" here on iMech just a few weeks ago; the previous post is here.

I'm glad to hear that part of the intent with this journal is to include significant cross-over in the different interested communities--best wishes for the journal's success.

Is it intended that the journal will be Medline-indexed? That seems to be very important to some parts of the community (more classical, clinically-oriented biomechanics) and at least somewhat less important to other parts of the mechanics community. I suspect part of the lack of integration of the literature comes about because of this divide in Medline prioritization. I wish there was a single mechanism for searching both Medline and the Engineering indexes for biomechanics papers. Right now I almost always run the same searches in both places. If anyone knows of a better way to do this please let me know!

A New Journal

David Taylor — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 12:25:15 -0500

You folks may be interested to know that we've just started a new journal which is trying to sit on this particular fence - beween mechanics and biology. It's called the Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials (JMBBM). We are trying to have papers reviewed by both mechanicians and biologists - any work on the mechanical properties of biological materials or biomaterials is welcome. This will only succeed if people from both sides of this research community use it - we hope for the best!

Mechanician and Biomechanician

H-C Han — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 16:14:44 -0500

It's a very intesting discussion about mechanics and Biomechanics. I think there is no simple answer to how much should a mecchanician get into the "bio-" circles. If one just needs to explory an extra application for one's theories or models in living organs, the easy way is to find good collaborators. However, if one want to make a career in addressing a "bio-" or medical problem, it is necessay to dive in and try to become an expert on the topic. Professor YC Fung is a best example of a Mechanician who becomes Biomechanician. He became the expert on both the mechanical and biological/medical aspects of the problems he studied. He was even elected as a senior member of the National Institute of Medicine in 1991.

I believe the disparity

Will Adams — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 07:48:19 -0500

I believe the disparity between mechanician and biologist will become extinct. I say this because I notice a growing number of graduate students who are being trained for this interface. I like to consider myself one of them; a student who is comfortable studying mechanics that any mechanician would call respectable and studying biology in a way that any biologist would call respectable. This is the best way, learning mechanics from real mechanician and biology from real biologists. This has imparted on me the perspective of each field and also each's frustrations with the other. Though I am happy to have a graduate program flexible enough for this sort of interdisciplinarity, I have an underlying worry that to study both necessarily means neglecting the nuances of each. Perhaps this worry is useful to keep around.

Will

Further thoughts

Konstantin Volokh — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 14:59:10 -0500

Well, mechanics is mechanics whether it is bio- or whatever else. I retire from further argument.

The problem of the cultural difference between engineers and medical doctors is deep. The reason for that is natural - the medical profession is very conservative (and it should be!) while the engineering field is very innovative and dynamic. We should try to bridge these opposite trends if that is possible in principle.

Concerning the NIH funding, Xi, it is probably practical to have a couple of MDs on your proposal.

Biomechanicians and mechanicians: meet in the middle?

MichelleLOyen — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 12:52:52 -0500

I do agree that biomechanics can be perceived as having its own unique culture, although I also agree that the field is changing rapidly and this many not be the case for much longer.

Just as in the discussion about how much biology or medicine a mechanics person must learn before entering into a fruitful collaboration, a similar point can likely be made about mechanicians and biomechanics experts entering into collaborative relationships. The best results will come about if we don't expect either to fully learn the intricacies of each others' culture, but instead to meet in the middle.

This type of understanding is especially important in terms of the publications--better integration of the literature will help both sides. That said, this is also the area where the "culture differences" can be particularly problematic. It is up to us as a community to try to encourage progress by interacting more across the "cultural" divide.

Biomechanicians + Mechanicians, not versus.

Michael S. Sacks — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 08:05:59 -0500

In general, Biomechanics as a field is moving very much towards mechanobiology. I think approaches like multi-scale approaches towards modeling, etc. can really help move the field along. I think the key feature is that Mechanics has to serve to elucidate an aspect of biological function, it cannot exist by itself, and that this functional aspect has to be presented in such a way that the larger Biomedical community can understand.

I think the major issue here is that Biomechanics as a field has a very different culture than other traditional mechanics fields, largely fueled by its link to NIH funding. So, as I said before traditionally trained Mechanicians can provide tremendous contributions but have to learn the culture too in order to be relevant to the field in general. This should not be viewed as a barrier but as an opportunity to cross disciplines.

Biomechanicians versus mechanicians

Konstantin Volokh — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 04:41:08 -0500

I am grateful to Michael Sacks for raising the issue of "devotion" to biomechanics. I read a lot on biomechanics and I do not find that the exclusive devotion of some authors to biomechanics has improved the quality of their work from the mechanics viewpoint. The devoted biomechanicians tried and succeeded to create a biomechanics community which is somewhat isolated from the general mechanics community. There is an advantage in such positioning, of course, concerning grants, publications, promotion etc. I think, however, that in the longterm perspective there is a disadvantage in the isolation because it leads to the deterioration of the quality of research. After the end of the cold war a lot of the classical mechanicians turned to the bio stuff and they should be attracted and not repulsed by the existing biomechanics community.

How to help Mechanics people and NIH funding,etc.

Michael S. Sacks — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 17:15:01 -0500

I am new to this discussion group but have been working in Biomechanics since I was a lowly undergrad. I have seen the field translate from rather simplistic approaches to extemely sophisticated approaches. Michelle Oyen is correct about the NIH. However, there are plenty of collaborations Traditionaly trained engineers can do. The best bet is to become a collaborator of an established group, then build up a track record. The main issue is to realize that one has to devote much time to this and it cannot be "just another of my mechanics research areas." Biological and medical science is just way to complex to be treated in this way. And (lets face it), most of the "easy" stuff has been done. We now need real progress in theories, experimental, and computational approaches.

Regarding the need for a journal for "biological materials" work - there already is one - The Journal of Biomechancal Engineering. As of July 2007 I will become the new Editor and will be looking for ways to expand the Journal. Special issues will be highlighted, so if you guys are looking for a good venue - this is the one.

-Michael

Michael S. Sacks, Ph.D.
W.K. Whiteford Professor
Department of Bioengineering

NIH mission

MichelleLOyen — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 19:37:17 -0500

I believe it is important to note that the NIH mission has to do with healthcare and clinical practice, which have roots in basic biological sciences but a more applied focus.

There are interesting mechanics applications in both basic biology and in clinical medicine but the NIH funding stream is historically associated with the latter.

For research, no. For funding...

Xi Chen — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 14:31:58 -0500

Kosta,

I fully agree with you that during the interdisciplinary research, we mechanicians could use our strength to complement the biologists, and we do not need to become biologists. For funding, however, especially if we wish to get something from NIH as a PI, I am afraid we need to think and behave more like a biologist, because that field has been well-dominated by the conventional biologists who would show no mercy on people who do not fit well into their "culture". I think all the issues raised by this series of discussion are important and we need to find a balance point.

Strength in collaboration

MichelleLOyen — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 12:33:32 -0500

I agree completely with your point. We must develop good relationships between biologists and mechanicians. I believe that the language and vocabulary are sufficiently different to require study on the part of both parties to faciliate communications. So I do believe that we mechanicians should study biology but not become biologists, and vice versa. I have fortunately encountered biologists (and both medical and veterinary clinicians) who were interested in doing so and have made excellent collaborators.

I also agree wholeheartedly that there is a current lack of appropriate journal for high quality mechanics work on biological materials. (Traditionally "biomaterials" is a word used amongst my colleagues for engineering materials that are implanted in the body, and not natural materials.) Aside from a few recent and proposed focus issues, I know of no appropriate venue for this work and would enthusiastically endorse such an effort, especially if it helped unite these interesting and complementary fields.

Thoughts on Integration of Biomechanics and Applied Mechanics

MichelleLOyen — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 20:41:29 -0500

Biomechanics is a reasonably well-developed field of study, with a modern history usually linked to the pioneering work of Prof. Y.C. Fung in the 1960s. There are a number of dedicated biomechanics journals (including but not limited to the Journal of Biomechanics and the Journal of Biomechanical Engineering). The field is well-enough established to have several generations of researchers working on the subject at universities across the world. Historically there has been a strong link between biomechanics researchers and clinical medicine practitioners. Recently there has been a sharp increase in interest in the subject (i.e. biomechanics) by applied mechanicians who did not come from a "classic" biomechanics background or training. This is good for everyone who works in biomechanics and good for the subject in general. However, the concern that arises in my mind is the accidental development of two independent literatures on the subject--one dominated by applied mechanics journals and one associated with the traditional biomechanics community and emphasizing Medline-indexed journals. It is potentially concerning that there will be the potential for poor integration between the two sets of papers and thus potential for wheel-reinvention. I don't know how to solve this problem, but it is my hope that by developing an active community online (including iMechanica) there will be good communication and collaboration between these two diverse groups, who are quite likely to attack the same problems with very different approaches.