Cells, Forces, and the Microenvironment

Micromechanical Cues Converging on Fibroblasts, Cardiac Myocytes and Stem Cells; James R. Pinney, Golnar Doroudian, Patrick Chew, Tejal A. Desai and Brenda Russell

How Microbes Sense and Respond to Force: a Single-Molecule View; Peter N. Lipke, Jürgen J. Heinisch and Yves F. Dufrêne

Modulating Cell Adhesion by Non-Covalent Ligand Attachment; Andreas Müller, Christina Müller and Tilo Pompe

Traction Microscopy; Ramaswamy Krishnan, Dhananjay Tambe, Robert L. Steward, Corey C. Hardin and James P. Butler

The Mechanical Regulation of Myofibroblasts

Mechanically Guided Matrix Remodeling and Prevention of Fibrosis in Regenerative Medicine; Jenna L. Balestrini and Boris Hinz

Interstitial Fluid Flow Mechanosensing: Mechanisms and Consequences; Arpit D. Shah and Adrian C. Shieh

Mechanical Properties of Cytoskeletal Structures and their Response to Externally Applied Forces; Takahiro Watanabe-Nakayama, Shin’ichi Machida, Masakazu Saito, Rehana Afrin and Atsushi Ikai

Shape and Mechanical Cues Underlying Cellular Homeostasis in Soft Organs; Jordi Alcaraz and Pere Roca-Cusachs

Muscle Contraction and Sarcomere Length Non-Uniformities; Walter Herzog

Microfluidic Modeling of Cancer Metastasis; Zeta Tak For Yu, Koh Meng Aw Yong and Jianping Fu

Engineering Strategies to Recapitulate the Tumor Microenvironment; Andrew Rape and Sanjay Kumar

Micropost Methods for Cell Biomechanics of the Cardiovascular System; Kevin S. Bielawski and Nathan J. Sniadecki Dynamic Mechanical Environments to Quantify and Control Cellular Dynamics; Luke MacQueen, Christopher Moraes, Yu Sun and Craig A. Simmons

Tip Growth in Walled Cells: Cellular Expansion and Invasion Mechanisms; Amir Sanati Nezhad and Anja Geitmann Expansive Growth of Cells with Walls: Force Generation and Growth Regulation; Joseph K. E. Ortega, Jason T. Truong, Cindy M. Munoz and Elena L. Ortega

Biography

Charles M. Cuerrier received a PhD in pharmacology at the Université de Sherbrooke, Canada. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Interdisciplinary Nanophysics, University of Ottawa, Canada, in collaboration with the University of Ottawa Heart Institute. He is the recipient of a postdoctoral fellowship from the Fonds de Recherche du Québec—Santé and of the Ernest and Margaret Ford Research Fellowship in Cardiology.

Andrew E. Pelling received a PhD in physical chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles, USA, and did his postdoctoral research as a senior research fellow at the London Centre for Nanotechnology, University College London, England. He is currently an associate professor and Canada Research Chair in Experimental Cell Mechanics at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He leads the Pelling Lab for Biophysical Manipulation at the Center for Interdisciplinary Nanophysics, University of Ottawa.

"This book is an excellent text for the expert or the learner entering the field of mechanobiology. It covers the cues from the forces exerted on cells and by cells to responses to matrix organization and matrix stiffness in how cells grow, crawl, attach, detach, differentiate, and change phenotype. This field is as driven by new techniques as by new data, and this text provides ample information on both with generous helpful use of color figures and a focus on how we understand the most recent key findings."

—Dr. Geoffrey N. Maksym, Dalhousie University, Canada