The importance of mechanics in biology is increasingly recognized in human health and disease. Mechanical cues are read, generated, and transmitted by biological systems and are essential for a wide range of cellular processes including cell fate and differentiation. The emerging field of Mechanobiology examines mechanical signaling across multiple scales from single molecules to whole organisms. The methods used to address this question are diverse and require multidisciplinary teams of engineers, physicists, biologists, and clinicians. However, existing gaps and barriers in information exchange, as well as cultural differences between these diverse scientific communities, limit progress. The ?Mechbio symposium: The Mechanome in Action? conference proposed here seeks to bring together researchers from multiple disciplines who work on mechanical signal transduction. The conference aims to unify researchers from a broad range of fields (physics, biology, chemistry, math, medicine, engineering) and with expertise in a wide variety of methodologies (theory, computation, and experiments) to encourage collaboration. The conference will be held on July 26-27, 2018, at the Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center at the University of California, Irvine. The conference will be organized into 6 sessions with the following topics on Mechanobiology: Tissue Organization, Cell-Cell Interactions, Cell Fate & Differentiation, Bacterial Physiology and Host-Microbe interactions, Channels and Membranes, and Sensory Transduction. Each session will consist of talks by a student or postdoc, junior faculty, and keynote speaker. To facilitate new collaborations and scientific engagement among principal investigators and students, two interactive social sessions will be arranged: Science Speed-Meetings and Science Challenge: Mechanobiology Moonshot. Furthermore, to stimulate new scientific collaborations, Mechbio Opportunity Awards will be awarded that will support travel for a team of two to three graduate students to travel to the other respective lab to work on a new collaboration. To provide an inclusive atmosphere, speakers have been invited with consideration of gender, career stage and ethnic background, and childcare supplements, travel awards, and disability services will be offered. The University of California at Irvine is a leader in biomechanics and biophysics and will provide a stimulating environment for this symposium. In addition, the conference venue offers a modern and interactive environment in the heart of the UC Irvine campus. The site is 3 miles from John Wayne Airport (SNA) and is in close proximity to hotels, nature reserves, and beaches. Irvine is also in proximity to major universities with diverse student representation University of California campuses, the University of Southern California, Caltech and Stanford.
Living systems need to respond to mechanical forces in order to function properly. The dysfunction of mechanical responses results in a variety of human diseases. This proposal seeks to bring together biologists, bioengineers, chemists, and physicists through the ?Mechbio symposium: The Mechanome in Action? in July of 2018 at the University of California, Irvine, to discuss recent advances in research that addresses how mechanical signals are read, generated, and transmitted by living systems and how these impact human health. 1
