News

April 14, 2008
The program is now available here.

February 29, 2008
Registration is now OPEN.

February 26, 2008
New information on transportation from the airport has been posted here.

February 10, 2008
Interested in sharing a room with another participant? Submit your contact information here.

February 1, 2008
The deadline for abstract submissions has passed.

Welcome

Mechanics plays a central role in determining the form and function of biological systems. At the macroscopic scale it has obvious applications to understanding the response of soft and hard tissue. This is seen in the wide use of continuum mechanics models of muscle, tendon, cartilage and bone. Such models are not recent. However, the rise of tissue engineering in the past few years with its promise for tissue replacement therapies and the insights it holds to biomimetic structures is a new frontier for mechanics of tissue. At the microscopic scale, mechanics is frequently invoked to explain cell adhesion to substrates both in vivo and in vitro (focal adhesion), cell traction (actin filaments of the cytoskeleton), and the structural integrity of the cell (microtubules). These aspects of "cell mechanics" are commonly used by the mainstream biological community, as traditional mechanicians may be surprised to learn. Indeed, if cells do not develop the appropriate stresses, they are inviable and die. It is also held that many functions of the cell are ultimately affected by mechanical actuation of its components even though electrical and chemical signals play intermediary roles in the processes. At the sub-microscopic scale the molecules that make up many proteins such as collagen, elastin, actin and myosin to name just a few, assume configurations that are determined by their strain energy states. This is actually common to all molecules. The evolution of chemical reactions, being driven by free energy, is strongly influenced by the strain in bonds. The aim of the proposed symposium is to gather a group of scientists who use mechanics to study biological systems at molecular, cellular or tissue levels. The focus will be on explaining biological states, both normal and pathological, through mechanics, rather than viewing biology as a fertile playing ground for mechanicians. It is our intention to build upon the success of a recent IUTAM symposium held in Graz, Austria, in 2004, while shifting the emphasis somewhat to include the cellular and molecular scales at which the success or failure of a biological organism seems to be largely decided.

The symposium will cover the following topics:

• Cellular adhesion
• Thermodynamics of cellular processes
• Molecular mechanics
• Computational analysis of mechano-transduction
• Tissue engineering
• Hierarchical multiscale models
• Transport at the nanoscale in tissue
• Analysis of coupled processes as complex systems