The first of its kind, this comprehensive resource integrates cellular mechanobiology with micro-nano techniques to provide unrivalled in-depth coverage of the field, including state-of-the-art methods, recent advances, and biological discoveries. Structured in two parts, the first part offers detailed analysis of innovative micro-nano techniques including FRET imaging, electron cryo-microscopy, micropost arrays, nanotopography devices, laser ablation, and computational image analysis. The second part of the book provides valuable insights into the most recent technological advances and discoveries in areas such as stem cell, heart, bone, brain, tumor, and fibroblast mechanobiology. Written by a team of leading experts and well-recognised researchers, this is an essential resource for students and researchers in biomedical engineering.

In this comprehensive resource, experts in the field describe state-of-the-art techniques and introduce the most recent technological advances and discoveries in cell mechanobiology. The first work of its kind, integrating cellular mechanobiology with micro-nano techniques, it is ideal for students and researchers in biomedical and mechanical engineering.

Chemical reactions and interactions between molecules are commonly considered the basis of life, and thus the biochemical nature of cells and organisms is relatively well recognized. Research conducted in recent years, however, increasingly indicates that physical forces profoundly affect the functioning of life at all levels of its organization. To detect and to respond to such forces, plant cells and plants need to be structured mechanically. This volume focuses on mechanical aspects of plant life. It starts with a consideration of the mechanical integration of supracellular structures and mechanical properties of cellular building blocks to show how the structural integrity of plant cells is achieved and maintained during growth and development. The following chapters reveal how the functioning of integrated plant cells contributes to the mechanical integration of plants, and how the latter are able to detect physical stimuli and to reorganize their own cells in response to them. The mechanical aspects of plant responses to stresses are also presented. Finally, all these aspects are placed in an evolutionary context.

Mechanobiology is a new research field that investigates how the physical forces and changes in mechanical properties of cells and tissues contribute to their development, physiology and disease. One unique feature in the mechanical regulation, distinct from chemical/biochemical one, is that it can directly react with the multi-layered architectures of living systems, ranging from nano-scale proteins, subcellular organelles, cells, tissues, organs to whole bodies; one could term it “mechanoarchitectonics”. Another important aspect is its time-dependent dynamic feature. Not only time evolution in cells and extracellular matrices, but their intrinsic viscoelastic nature makes mechanical interaction dissipative and such feature is critical in cellular mechanical responses. This book focuses on recent progress in mechanobiology from the materials science perspective, encompassing innovative material designs for force measurements and actuation to resolve dynamic mechanobiology and mechanoarchitectonics, by better mimicking physiologically relevant and time-evolving cellular mechanical environments. It also shows the marriage between cutting-edge materials science which enable spatiotemporal manipulation of material and cell dynamics in multi-dimensions and molecular biological techniques such as genome editing and next generation sequencing for cell fate/motility engineering and disease modelling, with the aim of providing valuable insights into the latest technological advances and discoveries in areas such as stem cell, fibroblast, heart, tumour, and epithelial mechanobiology. Edited by leaders in the field, this book will be suitable for a broad range of readers, including materials scientists, biomaterial and biomedical engineering researchers and those working in chemical and mechanical engineering to expand possibilities of system designs for the developments of medical technologies based on mechanobiology.

During the 1970s, renewed interest in plant mechanical signaling led to the discovery that plants subjected to mechanical stimulation develop shorter and thicker axes than undisturbed plants, a syndrome called thigmomorphogenesis. Currently, mechanosensing is being intensively studied because of its involvement in many physiological processes in plants and particularly in the control of plant morphogenesis. From an ecological point of view, the shaping of plant architecture has to be precisely organized in space to ensure light capture as well as mechanical stability. In natural environments terrestrial plants are subjected to mechanical stimulation mainly due to wind, but also due to precipitation, while aquatic and marine plants are subjected to current and wave energy. Plants acclimate to mechanically challenging environments by sensing mechanical stimulations and modifying their growth in length and diameter and their tissue properties to reduce potential for buckling or breakage. From a morphogenetic point of view, both external and internal mechanical cues play an important role in the control of cell division and meristem development likely by modulating microtubule orientation. How mechanical stimulations are being sensed by plants is an area of intense research. Different types of mechanosensors have been discovered or proposed, including ion channels gated by membrane tension (stretch activation) and plasma membrane receptor-like kinases that monitor the cell wall deformations. Electrophysiologists have measured the conductances of some stretch-activated channels and have showed that SAC of different structures can exhibit different conductances. The role of these differences in conductance has not yet been established. Once a mechanical stimulus has been perceived, it must be converted into a biological signal that can lead to variations of plant phenotype. Calcium has been shown to function as an early second messenger, tightly linked with changes in cytosolic and apoplastic pH. Transcriptional analyses of the effect of mechanical stimulation have revealed a considerable number of differentially expressed genes, some of which appear to be specific to mechanical signal transduction. These genes can thus serve as markers of mechanosensing, for example, in studies attempting to define signalling threshold, or variations of mechanosensitivity (accommodation). Quantitative biomechanical studies have lead to a model of mechanoperception which links mechanical state and plant responses, and provides an integrative tool to study the regulation of mechanosensing. This model includes parameters (sensitivity and threshold) that can be estimated experimentally. It has also been shown that plants are desensitized when exposed to multiple mechanical signals as a function of their mechanical history. Finally, mechanosensing is also involved in osmoregulation or cell expansion. The links between these different processes involving mechanical signalling need further investigation. This frontier research topic provides an overview of the different aspects of mechanical signaling in plants, spanning perception, effects on plant growth and morphogenesis, and broad ecological significance.

This book will cover the cutting-edge developments in molecular and cellular mechanobiology to date. Readers will have a clear understanding of mechanobiology at the molecular and cellular levels, encompassing the mechanosensors, transducers, and transcription. An integrative approach across different scales from molecular sensing to mechanotransduction and gene modulation for physiological regulation of cellular functions will be explored, as well as applications to pathophysiological states in disease. A comprehensive understanding of the roles of physicochemical microenvironment and intracellular responses in determining cellular function in health and disease will also be discussed.

A Companion to Biological Anthropology The discipline of biological anthropology—the study of the variation and evolution of human beings and their evolutionary relationships with past and living hominin and primate relatives—has undergone enormous growth in recent years. Advances in DNA research, behavioral anthropology, nutrition science, and other fields are transforming our understanding of what makes us human. A Companion to Biological Anthropology provides a timely and comprehensive account of the foundational concepts, historical development, current trends, and future directions of the discipline. Authoritative yet accessible, this field-defining reference work brings together 37 chapters by established and younger scholars on the biological and evolutionary components of the study of human development. The authors discuss all facets of contemporary biological anthropology including systematics and taxonomy, population and molecular genetics, human biology and functional adaptation, early primate evolution, paleoanthropology, paleopathology, bioarchaeology, forensic anthropology, and paleogenetics. Updated and expanded throughout, this second edition explores new topics, revisits key issues, and examines recent innovations and discoveries in biological anthropology such as race and human variation, epidemiology and catastrophic disease outbreaks, global inequalities, migration and health, resource access and population growth, recent primate behavior research, the fossil record of primates and humans, and much more. A Companion to Biological Anthropology, Second Edition is an indispensable guide for researchers and advanced students in biological anthropology, geosciences, ancient and modern disease, bone biology, biogeochemistry, behavioral ecology, forensic anthropology, systematics and taxonomy, nutritional anthropology, and related disciplines.

This book covers the proceedings of the Fifth Symposium on Mechanobiology of Cartilage and Chondrocyte. Mechanobiology can be now considered as a vigorous branch of biomechanics, biorheology and physiology mainly concerned with the study of the influence of mechanical forces on cells and tissues and their clinical or therapeutical applications. As we are now in the age of proteomics, genomics and cell micro mechanical approaches, suing methods like laser tweezers or confocal microscopy, mechanobiology brings new challenges. With such new research, mechanobiology promises new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. In other respect there has been increasing interest over recent years in the fundamental role played by local mechanical parameters in chondrocyte regulations and cartilage dysfunctions as a first step in the development of osteoarthritis. These proceedings are sub-divided into four parts: Theoretical approaches and mechanobiology of chondrocyte; Cartilage and chondrocyte studies; Osteoarthritis: inflammation degradation and clinical approaches; and, Cartilage engineering

Micro and Nano Systems for Biophysical Studies of Cells and Small Organisms provides a comprehensive introduction to the state-of-the-art micro and nano systems that have recently been developed and applied to biophysical studies of cells and small organisms. These micro and nano systems span from microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and microfluidic devices to robotic micro-nanomanipulation systems. These biophysical studies range from cell mechanics to the neural science of worms and Drosophila. This book will help readers understand the fundamentals surrounding the development of these tools and teach them the most recent advances in cellular and organismal biophysics enabled by these technologies. - Comprehensive coverage of micro and nano-system technology and application to biophysical studies of cells and small organisms. - Highlights the most recent advances in cellular and organismal biophysics enabled by micro and nano systems. - Insightful outlook on future directions and trends in each chapter covering a sub-area of the book topic.

This volume of the series Cardiac and Vascular Biology presents the most relevant aspects of vascular mechanobiology along with many more facets of this fascinating, timely and clinically highly relevant field. Mechanotransduction, mechanosensing, fluid shear stress, hameodynamics and cell fate, are just a few topics to name. All important aspects of vascular mechanobiology in health and disease are reviewed by some of the top experts in the field. This volume, together with a second title on cardiac mechanobiology featured in this series, will be of high relevance to scientists and clinical researchers in the area of vascular biology, cardiology and biomedical engineering.