The University of Exeter will shortly announce several new chairs it is seeking to fill.
The chairs are full tenured chairs and in the following areas -
Cell Mechanics (two chairs, one nominally experimental and one nominally theoretical).
Structural Dynamics, possibly with an aerospace flavour.
If you are interested, or know someone who might be, please contact me (c.w.smith-at-exeter.ac.uk) for an informal discussion.
Regards,
Chris Smith
A postdoctoral position is available for a highly
motivated candidate to study the physical principles of cell motility in the
Biophysics Group of the Interfaces & Complex Fluids Lab at the University
of Mons in collaboration with the Bio- and Soft Matter Group of the Institute
of Condensed Matter and Nanosciences at the Université catholique de Louvain.
We wrote a book chapter about the role of the actin cytoskeleton in mechanosensation. The book title is Mechanosensitivity and Mechanotransduction, edited by A, Kamkin and I. Kiseleva and published by Springer-Verlag, New York.".
In this chapter, we try to integrate mechanics, materials science, biophysics and biology together to give a most updated view of this field. We also want to introduce the feedback loop concept to mechanicians who are interested in studying biological systems.
We present an application of fluid-structure interaction analysis to the mechanics of red blood cells. For more information see the following link:
http://www.adina.com/newsgH60.shtml
Please recall that we offer a special academic package, for research and teaching, for university users. For more information see:
http://www.adina.com/educ.shtml
The 2009 Joint ASCE-ASME-SES Conference on Mechanics and Materials, June 24-27, 2009 · Blacksburg, VA
Materiomics - materials science of biological protein materials
As the most rigid cytoskeletal filaments, microtubules bear compressive forces in living cells, balancing the tensile forces within the cytoskeleton to maintain the cell shape. It is often observed that, in living cells, microtubules under compression severely buckle into short wavelengths. By contrast, when compressed, isolated microtubules in vitro buckle into single long-wavelength arcs. The critical buckling force of the microtubules in vitro is two orders of magnitude lower than that of the microtubules in living cells.
In order to achieve a wide variety of biological phenomena, the abilities of cells to contact effectively and interact specifically with neighboring media play a central role. It is known that cells can sense the chemical and mechanical properties of surrounding systems and regulate their adhesion and movement through binding protein molecules within cell membrane. The kinetics of binding molecules interacting with ligands is of great interest in biophysical society. There are lots of discussions and contributions on cell mechanics from our mechanical society, e.g.
Full support is available for 2 PhD students in cellular mechanics group in Biomedical Engineering Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
The applicants should have mechanics, materials or soft matter physics background, with some experimental experience at micro-scales. Experience with any of the following is considered a
plus: computational mechanics, cell/tissue culture, microscopy, image analysis, photonics.
