ICMBT 2011 - ICMBT 2011 : International Conference on the Mechanics of Biomaterials and Tissues

4th International Conference on the Mechanics of Biomaterials and Tissues

Conference Chair
Markus J. Buehler, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

Join us at the 4th International Conference on Mechanics of Biomaterials and Tissues reviewing the very latest on the mechanics of biological, natural and biologically inspired materials, and those materials used to replace them in the human body.

The conference provides a forum for the discussion of the modeling and measurement of deformation and fracture behavior in biological and replacement materials, and the role mechanical properties play in physiological and disease conditions. A core theme will be how lessons learnt in the study of engineering materials can be made relevant to the study of biomaterials, and how this can help us to develop models for biological processes, new treatment solutions and new materials.

The mechanical behavior of human-body materials is a subject of great scientific interest, the understanding of which is of vital importance in many branches of engineering and medicine, from sports science to the design of medical devices and the development and making of new materials. Materials such as bone, cartilage, silk or muscle have intriguing and unique characteristics, but nevertheless their behavior can usefully be studied using techniques developed for other load-bearing, structural materials. For example, fracture mechanics can be applied to study the growth of cracks in bone, and soil mechanics modeling informs the study of biphasic soft tissue materials. Studies in biomechanics range from the microscopic to the macroscopic scale, including work at the nano- and cellular level, such as the mechanics of individual cells and molecules such as protein and DNA and how the interaction of constituting elements at all scales results in functional material properties.

Topic List

Natural, biologically inspired and biomimetic materials
Hard (e.g. bone, teeth) and soft tissues and materials (e.g. cartilage, tendon, silk)
Mechanobiology, regenerative medicine and tissue engineering
Multiscale modelling and simulation of tissue mechanical properties, including ab initio approaches, molecular dynamics, coarse-graining and finite element modeling
Multiscale experimental characterization of biological tissues, including AFM, TEM, nanoindentation, optical tweezers, x-ray diffraction
Self-assembly of biological and biomaterials
Hierarchical polymer materials and composites (e.g. dental ceramics and fibre-reinforced composites)
Metals and ceramics as biomaterials
Tribology, friction and wear as well as fatigue
Deformation and failure of materials in physiologically extreme conditions and disease