Computational Mechanics of Tissues and Cells

The course consists of two parts: lectures and hands-on workshops. The lectures are designed to give students in-depth knowledge of the mechanical behaviour of cells and tissues and how their behaviour can be explained in terms of mechanical theories.

The hands-on workshops give students the opportunity to apply what they have learned in the lectures. A commercial Finite Element (FEM) modelling package is used to make FEM modelling as practical as possible. The emphasis is therefore shifted from the technical details of the FEM modelling towards understanding the modelling procedures and applying them for analysis of certain problems. The problems are chosen to be as close to the real-world problems as possible. In addition to finite element modelling, the principles of medical image processing for finite element modelling are discussed.The course is divided into two almost equal parts. The first part covers patient-specific finite element modelling of tissues and implants. The second part is focused on the mechanical behaviour of cells and proteins (such as collagen).

The following topics will be covered in the lecturing (tentative):

• Lecture 1: Introduction to the course

• Lecture 2: Geometry of tissues and implants for finite element modelling (including statistical shape and statistical shape and intensity models)

• Lecture 3-5: Material modelling and material properties (including isotropic and anisotropic linear elasticity, hyperelasticity, viscoelasticity, and poroelasticity)

• Lecture 6: Loads and boundary conditions (including musculoskeletal models) Lecture 7: Modelling of tissue growth and adaptation

• Lecture 8: Introduction to cell mechanics, continuum models of the cell

• Lecture 9: Tensegrity models of the cell

• Lecture 10: Polymer-based models of the cell

• Lecture 11-12: Protein mechanics

The workshops start from very simple modelling exercises that introduce the FEM package and show how it can be used for simple modelling tasks. The level of difficulty will gradually increase up to the point that students can do FEM modelling of tissues, cells, proteins, and tissue-implant systems.