Book chapter

Preface
Living cells are extremely complex and plastic systems and unravelling of the many processes and mechanisms at the basis of this biological machinery is one of the major challenges of scientific research.

Cell sensitivity to mechanical, gravitational, geometrical stimuli is an exciting and relatively new area of research that should provide important clues concerning cell physiology. Recent findings show that cell function and adaptation occurs with changes of the physical micro-environment and suggest that mechanical and electrical signals but also the more common biochemical environment are somehow interpreted by the cells along common pathways.

This book, far from giving an exhaustive state of the art in such a wide research field, collects fourteen chapters concerning different aspects of cell mechanochemistry, mechanosensing and mechanotransduction. These chapters have been written by outstanding scientists with various backgrounds, but with a common quality: all of them have been spending many years, in some cases great part of their life, in studying how biological systems respond to and interact with a variety of mechanical stresses.

The aim of this book is to elucidate some of these processes, increasing the interest on this exciting field of research and to suggest new clues and stimulate further ideas to understand mechanisms important for cell functions.

The editors sincerely thank the authors for their excellent work, which may be an enjoyable and stimulating reading for both experts and beginners in this research area

Monica Monici
Jack J.W.A. van Loon