Biomechanics and Mechanobiology

Our biomechanics and mechanobiology research focuses upon mechanics at and across the molecular, cellular, tissue, and organ levels.

While biomechanics research largely involves determining, manipulating, and testing the forces and deformations experienced by biological tissues, tissue replacements, or their constitutive elements, mechanobiology studies how physical cues, such as applied forces or the stiffness of the environment around the cell, affect cell behavior.

Research efforts range from applications in orthopaedics, injury mechanics, biomaterial and tissue engineering design to those aimed at affecting disease states where mechanical perturbations in tissues are known to augment pathogenesis, such as cancer and atherosclerosis.

Collaborations in this area at Duke involve faculty from the Duke University Medical Center divisions of Cardiology, Hematology, Orthopaedic Surgery, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Ophthalmology, and Rheumatology, as well as faculty in the departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering and of Mechanical Engineering in the Pratt School of Engineering and the departments of Biology and Cell Biology in the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences.