Endothelial cells (ECs) lining all blood vessels are subjected to large mechanical stresses
that regulate their structure and function in health and disease. Here, we review EC …

Blood vessels and nerve fibers are distributed throughout the entirety of skeletal tissue, and
play important roles during bone development and fracture healing by supplying oxygen …

The recent convergence between physics and biology has led many physicists to enter the
fields of cell and developmental biology. One of the most exciting areas of interest has been …

Cells sense mechanical signals from their microenvironment and transduce them to the
nucleus to regulate gene expression programs. To elucidate the physical mechanisms …

The mechanical properties of soft biological tissues are essential to their physiological
function and cannot easily be duplicated by synthetic materials. Unlike simple polymer gels …

In 1993, a Commentary in this journal described how a simple mechanical model of cell
structure based on tensegrity architecture can help to explain how cell shape, movement …

Many cell types alter their morphology and gene expression profile when grown on
chemically equivalent surfaces with different rigidities. One expectation of this change in …

Most organs and biological tissues are soft viscoelastic materials with elastic moduli ranging
from on the order of 100 Pa for the brain to 100 000 Pa for soft cartilage. Biocompatible …

Living cells and tissues experience physical forces and chemical stimuli in the human body.
The process of converting mechanical forces into biochemical activities and gene …

Forces are increasingly recognized as major regulators of cell structure and function, and
the mechanical properties of cells are essential to the mechanisms by which cells sense …