Guido Vitale

Transition from bending-dominated to stretching-dominated elastic response in semiflexible fibrous networks plays an important role in the mechanical behavior of cells and tissues. It is induced by changes in network connectivity and relies on the construction of new cross-links. We propose a simple continuum model of this transition with macroscop...

Transition from bending-dominated to stretching-dominated elastic response in semi-flexible fibrous networks plays an important role in the mechanical behavior of cells and tissues and its understanding is crucial for the design of new meta-materials. It is induced by changes in network connectivity resulting from the construction of new cross-link...

Segmentation is a characteristic feature of the vertebrate body plan. The prevailing paradigm explaining its origin is the ‘clock and wave-front’ model, which assumes that the interaction of a molecular oscillator (clock) with a traveling gradient of morphogens (wave) pre-defines spatial periodicity. While many genes potentially responsible for the...

This paper deals with the Traction Force Microscopy (TFM) problem. It consists in obtaining stresses by solving an inverse problem in an elastic medium, from known experimentally measured displacements. In this article, the application is the determination of the stresses exerted by a living cell at the surface of an elastic gel. We propose an abst...

Force traction microscopy is an inversion method that allows one to obtain the stress field applied by a living cell on the environment on the basis of a pointwise knowledge of the displacement produced by the cell itself. This classical biophysical problem, usually addressed in terms of Green functions, can be alternatively tackled using a variati...

Force traction microscopy is an inversion method that allows us to obtain the stress field applied by a living cell on the environment on the basis of a pointwise knowledge of the displacement produced by the cell itself. This classical biophysical problem, usually addressed in terms of Green's functions, can be alternatively tackled in a variation...

A number of biological phenomena are interlaced with classical mechanics. In this review we discuss the role of mechanics in tumor growth, namely the avascular phase of solid tumors. While a growing mass produces a traction of the surrounding tissues, a feedback mechanism controls the proliferation of the malignant cells depending on the tensional...

The main aim of the paper is to embed the experimental results recently obtained studying the detachment force of single adhesion bonds in a multiphase model developed in the framework of mixture theory. In order to do that the microscopic information is upscaled to the macroscopic level to describe the dependence of some crucial terms appearing in...

This chapter provides the basics to deduce multiphase models for the essential constituents present in tumours (cells, extracellular matrix, extracellular liquid, and possibly blood and limphatic vasculature). All the steps of the modelling procedure are explained in detail, special attention being paid to the meaning of all the different terms inv...

The emergence of residual stress as due to growth and remodeling of soft biological tissues is considered in the framework of the mixture theory. The focus is on mixtures composed by one elastic solid component and several fluid ones. It is shown that the standard theory is unable to predict residual stresses unless enriched by a suitable descripto...

The main aim of the paper is to embed the experimental results recently obtained studying the detachment force of single adhesion bonds in a multiphase model developed in the framework of mixture theory. In order to do that the microscopic information is upscaled to the macroscopic level to describe the dependence of some crucial terms appearing in...