About this Research Topic
Soft matter of biological origin, ranging from cytoskeletal assemblies to multicellular tissue, typically occurs as a viscoelastic gel which resists shear deformations at short time scales. Such materials behave as active solids, distinct from the more commonly studied active fluids comprising collections of freely motile units. Active solids can contract and change shape in response to the intrinsic, mechanical forces, such as those generated by molecular motors. Biological elastic materials typically comprise biopolymers that exhibit nonlinear mechanical properties both at the individual and collective level. Such assemblies of fibers can collectively align into orientationally ordered phases in response to internal active forces, which affects force transmission. The active forces are regulated by chemical signals, whose kinetics themselves can depend on mechanical force, leading to mechanochemical feedback. The elastic nature of such gels has important implications for their force-induced self-organization, and lead to novel behaviour not expected for solids at thermodynamic equilibrium.
Although the molecular actors involved in cell mechanobiology have been identified over the years, the types of collective structures and behaviour that can result in elastic materials of biological origin are only now beginning to be uncovered and require physical modelling to be understood. The nonequilibrium mechanical nature of biological materials result in new phenomena unexpected in passive condensed matter. Recent advances in experimental techniques such as microscopy and microrheology, and the ability to generate synthetic motors, and control their activity spatiotemporally, imply that active elastic systems can be studied in increasingly controllable settings to reveal a rich gallery of phenomena. At the same time, the study of biological materials has stimulated new theoretical models such as active gel theory, nonaffine elastic networks, and odd elasticity in the case of chiral activity. Increase in computational power imply that agent-based elastic models such as fibre networks can be used to elucidate force transmission, mechanical heterogeneity, mechanical interactions at long range, and mechanochemical dynamics, in biomaterials. We aim in this issue to combine theoretical, experimental and computational studies to uncover active phenomena in solids of biological or bio-inspired origin.
The aim of the current Research Topic is to cover promising, recent, and novel research trends on active elastic solids of biological or bio-inspired origin, ranging in scope from in vivo tissue to bio-synthetic composite materials. Areas to be covered in this Research Topic may include, but are not limited to:
- Rheology of complex biological matter, from cytoskeletal gels to cell cultures in elastic media
- Active gel theories and orientable active solids
- Active forces in polymer or fiber networks and nonlinear elastic media
- Active shape changes of soft media in bulk and in thin films or slender bodies
- Mechanochemical feedback and active forces in elastic media
- Bio-inspired autonomous materials
- Novel thermodynamic properties of non-equilibrium solids such as odd elasticity
- Jammed or glassy states of active matter
- Machine learning approaches to elasticity and active matter modelling and experiments
Although the molecular actors involved in cell mechanobiology have been identified over the years, the types of collective structures and behaviour that can result in elastic materials of biological origin are only now beginning to be uncovered and require physical modelling to be understood. The nonequilibrium mechanical nature of biological materials result in new phenomena unexpected in passive condensed matter. Recent advances in experimental techniques such as microscopy and microrheology, and the ability to generate synthetic motors, and control their activity spatiotemporally, imply that active elastic systems can be studied in increasingly controllable settings to reveal a rich gallery of phenomena. At the same time, the study of biological materials has stimulated new theoretical models such as active gel theory, nonaffine elastic networks, and odd elasticity in the case of chiral activity. Increase in computational power imply that agent-based elastic models such as fibre networks can be used to elucidate force transmission, mechanical heterogeneity, mechanical interactions at long range, and mechanochemical dynamics, in biomaterials. We aim in this issue to combine theoretical, experimental and computational studies to uncover active phenomena in solids of biological or bio-inspired origin.
The aim of the current Research Topic is to cover promising, recent, and novel research trends on active elastic solids of biological or bio-inspired origin, ranging in scope from in vivo tissue to bio-synthetic composite materials. Areas to be covered in this Research Topic may include, but are not limited to:
- Rheology of complex biological matter, from cytoskeletal gels to cell cultures in elastic media
- Active gel theories and orientable active solids
- Active forces in polymer or fiber networks and nonlinear elastic media
- Active shape changes of soft media in bulk and in thin films or slender bodies
- Mechanochemical feedback and active forces in elastic media
- Bio-inspired autonomous materials
- Novel thermodynamic properties of non-equilibrium solids such as odd elasticity
- Jammed or glassy states of active matter
- Machine learning approaches to elasticity and active matter modelling and experiments
Keywords: rheology, self-organization, active gels, active solids, mechano-chemical, morphogenesis
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