Abstract:
Nanomechanics and nanomanipulation of soft biological materials, such as molecular, cell and tissue, are essential for the advancement of the tissue engineering. For example, applying nanoscale force and displacement as mechanical stimuli for tissue regeneration, and for sorting and manipulating cells or molecules to nanofabricate de novo biomimetic systems, are in great need of both the better understanding of nanomechanics and the new techniques of nanomanipulations.
Recent advancements in bio-manipulation instruments, such as micromanipulation and optical tweezers [2], have enabled the nanomechanical characterisation and manipulation of biological cells and soft tissue. Micromanipulation is capable of the micro-force measurement of a single biological cell and tissue membrane at large deformation, while optical tweezers, often incoperated with micro-fluidic systems, allows to the force measurement as low as 100 pN. These measurements can be incorporated with mechanical modelling to facilitate the determination of the mechanical properties, such as the elasticity and rupture strength of cell and tissue membrane. In addition to the mechanical properties, interfacial characterization, e.g. cell-substrate adhesion, can be realized by our recently developed method which is based on Confocal Reflection Interference Contrast Microscopy (C-RICM) . In parallel, various theoretical modelling and simulations, such as the cell mechanics heory and capsule-substrate adhesion model, have been developed for interpreting the experimental data and for facilitating the determination of the mechanical properties of biological materials at the cellular/molecular level. Various materials, such as biological/ biomimetic cell and tissue, have been examined by using these new techniques, and their results are presented in this talk.

Brief Biography of the Speaker:
Dr. Isaac Kuo-Kang Liu is a Reader (Associate Professor) in Nanotechnology at School of Engineering, the University of Warwick, UK. Before joining Warwick in 2009, he was a Reader in Biomedical and Cell Engineering at the Institute of Science and Technology in Medicine, School of Medicine, Keele University, UK and an Associate Professor in the Mechanical and Production School of Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He completed his PhD study at the Chemical Engineering Department of Imperial College London, UK in 1995. His research interests include Cellular Bioengineering, Biomechanics, Nanomedicine, Tissue Engineering, and Biomedical Devices. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, a fellow of Nanotechnology Institute, and a senior member of American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). He is an editor of several prestigious journals (e.g. the Open J. Nanomedicine). He has published more than 40 high-impact journal papers in Bioengineering and Biophysical areas and 30 other publications, including 2 US patents.