Dear Colleagues,

Over the last few decades, the rapidly expanding field of biomechanics has broadened our understanding of how factors such as mechanical properties and forces affect molecules, cells, and tissues during development, differentiation, and homeostasis of living systems. Physical signals arise and apply at many different scales governing pathological processes. Cancer development and progression, among other biological pathways, can be seen as a mechanically driven process that occurs at the nanoscale but ultimately translates all the way up to entire organisms. Many physical assays to measure the viscoelasticity and fluidity, adhesiveness, stress relaxation, and creep compliance of cancer cells and tissues are proposed to serve as mechanomarkers of cancer development, but until now, an estimation of the likely course of a disease cannot be made on this basis by routine clinical tests. Therefore, a new bridge linking the biomechanical description of living systems with their biological function for clinical applications is needed. This Special Issue aims to fill this gap and expand our knowledge of biomechanical factors guiding cancer progression as well as exploring whether cancer progression can be hindered mechanically.

Dr. Katarzyna Pogoda
Guest Editor

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• cell mechanics
• tissue rheology
• mechanobiology
• mechanosensing
• mechanomarkers
• mechanomedicine
• biomechanics of cancer
• mechanically driven cancer progression