Symposium on Mechanics in Biology and Medicine

This symposium will be part of the 2007 ASME Applied Mechanics and Materials Conference, to be held in the University of Texas in Austin, in June 3-6, 2007.

Over the last few years there has been a dramatic increase in the activity level of research on mechanics of biological material, especially among researchers in applied mechanics and materials. New concepts, methods and tools have been developed for studies at tissue, single-cell and molecular levels, and new applications of mechanics in biology and medicine explored. To stimulate research in this field, we are organizing five symposia for the 2007 ASME Applied Mechanics and Materials Conference. The goals of these symposia are: (1) to bring together engineers, physicists, chemists, biologists and material scientists to discuss the cutting-edge research in this field, (2) to identify critical issues and challenges in further developing mechanics of biological materials, and (3) to help researchers in applied mechanics and materials enter this very promising field, and (4) to facilitate interdisciplinary studies. The five symposia are focused on respectively the following schemes: Tissue Mechanics, Cell Mechanics, Molecular Biomechanics, Mechanics of Materials, and Novel Technologies in Biomechanics. The specific topics in each theme area include, but are not limited to the following:

Tissue Mechanics: Constitutive modeling of biological tissues, experimental measurement of tissue properties, tissue remodeling, structure-function relations of tissue, numerical simulations in tissue mechanics, biological and disease applications of tissue mechanics

Cell Mechanics: Cell adhesion, cell motility, mechanical properties of single cells, constitutive modeling of cells, single-cell mechanical testing, cell cytoskeleton and cell-extracellular matrix interactions, mechanotransduction in cells, computational modeling of cells

Molecular Biomechanics: Deformation of DNA, RNA and proteins, analytic and computational analysis of biomolecules, mechanisms of mechanosensing, cell adhesion molecules, mechanics of subcellular structures and organelles, mechanics of endocytosis, viral budding, viral packaging

Mechanics of Biomaterials: Mechanics of biopolymers, mechanical strength of scaffolding materials, control of surface properties, biomaterial interfaces, mechanical testing and modeling of biomaterials

Novel Technologies in Biomechanics: AFM for tissue, cell and biomolecular testing, optical and magnetic tweezers for single-cell and single-molecule measurement, MEMS and NEMS devices for biomechanical studies, microfluidics, surface micropatterning, fluorescence and other imaging methods

Symposia Organizers:

Gang Bao, Georgia Tech and Emory University

Phil LeDuc, Carnegie Mellon University

Jerry Qi, University of Colorado, Boulder