The book is written by leading experts in the field presenting an up-to-date view of the subject matter in a didactically sound manner. It presents a review of the current knowledge of the behaviour of soft tissues in the cardiovascular system under mechanical loads, and the importance of constitutive laws in understanding the underlying mechanics is highlighted. Cells are also described together with arteries, tendons and ligaments, heart, and other biological tissues of current research interest in biomechanics. This includes experimental, continuum mechanical and computational perspectives, with the emphasis on nonlinear behaviour, and the simulation of mechanical procedures such as balloon angioplasty.

Systems Biomechanics of the Cell attempts to outline systems biomechanics of the cell as an emergent and promising discipline. The new field owes conceptually to cell mechanics, organism-level systems biomechanics, and biology of biochemical systems. Its distinct methodology is to elucidate the structure and behavior of the cell by analyzing the unintuitive collective effects of elementary physical forces that interact within the heritable cellular framework. The problematics amenable to this approach includes the variety of cellular activities that involve the form and movement of the cell body and boundary (nucleus, centrosome, microtubules, cortex, and membrane). Among the elementary system effects in the biomechanics of the cell, instability of symmetry, emergent irreversibility, and multiperiodic dissipative motion can be noted. Research results from recent journal articles are placed in this unifying framework. It is suggested that the emergent discipline has the potential to expand the spectrum of questions asked about the cell, and to further clarify the physical nature of animate matter and motion.

The mechanics of biological tissues is a multidisciplinary and rapidly expanding area of research. This book points to important directions combining mechanical sciences with the new developments in biology. It delivers articles on mechanics of tissues at the molecular, cellular, tissue and organ levels.

Introductory Biomechanics is a new, integrated text written specifically for engineering students. It provides a broad overview of this important branch of the rapidly growing field of bioengineering. A wide selection of topics is presented, ranging from the mechanics of single cells to the dynamics of human movement. No prior biological knowledge is assumed and in each chapter, the relevant anatomy and physiology are first described. The biological system is then analyzed from a mechanical viewpoint by reducing it to its essential elements, using the laws of mechanics and then tying mechanical insights back to biological function. This integrated approach provides students with a deeper understanding of both the mechanics and the biology than from qualitative study alone. The text is supported by a wealth of illustrations, tables and examples, a large selection of suitable problems and hundreds of current references, making it an essential textbook for any biomechanics course.

A research project entitled Biomechanics of Structure and Function of Living Cells, Tissues, and Organs was launched in Japan in 1992. This data book presents the original, up-to-date information resulting from the research project, supplemented by some of the important basic data published previously. The aim of collecting the information is to offer accurate and useful data on the mechanical properties of living materials to biomechanical scientists, biomedical engineers, medical scientists, and clinicians. The data are presented in graphs and tables (one type of data per page) arranged in an easily accessible manner, along with details of the origin of the material and the experimental method. Together with its two companion volumes, Biomechanics: Functional Adaptation and Remodeling and Computational Biomechanics, the Data Book on Mechanical Properties of Living Cells, Tissues, and Organs is a timely and valuable contribution to the rapidly growing field of biomechanics.

This book presents a full spectrum of views on current approaches to modeling cell mechanics. The authors come from the biophysics, bioengineering and physical chemistry communities and each joins the discussion with a unique perspective on biological systems. Consequently, the approaches range from finite element methods commonly used in continuum mechanics to models of the cytoskeleton as a cross-linked polymer network to models of glassy materials and gels. Studies reflect both the static, instantaneous nature of the structure, as well as its dynamic nature due to polymerization and the full array of biological processes. While it is unlikely that a single unifying approach will evolve from this diversity, it is the hope that a better appreciation of the various perspectives will lead to a highly coordinated approach to exploring the essential problems and better discussions among investigators with differing views.

This book bridges the gap between life sciences and physical sciences by providing several perspectives on cellular and molecular mechanics on a fundamental level. It begins with a general introduction to the scales and terms that are used in the field of cellular and molecular biomechanics and then moves from the molecular scale to the tissue scal