Les Houches School of PhysicsSince 1951

Building tissues and organs require cells to perform dynamic processes involving changes in their mechanical properties. Recent advances in the study of cellular processes regulating growth development, adhesion, and migration, show a significant transition towards interdisciplinary research at the interface of cell biology, physics and engineering. The aim of the school ’’Mechanobiology of polarized cells’’ is to focus on how intrinsic physical properties of cells and environment govern cellular behaviour. In particular, the series of lectures will provide an extraordinary number of new insights into the specific relation between environmental sensing and signal transduction, membrane tension and cellular properties/activities like cell volume, endocytosis or signalling as well as force generation and tissue formation. A few talks will decipher more technical aspects presenting recent advances in methods to measure cell stiffness and single-molecule mechanics.