Mechanomedicine

Mechanical forces act throughout the body across multiple scales, from organs and tissues to cells and molecules, playing a vital role in maintaining tissue integrity, regulating cellular functions and supporting physiological performance. Importantly, alterations in mechanical forces and properties can be hallmarks of tissue injury and disease, and can thus serve as valuable biomarkers for disease monitoring and diagnostics and can be harnessed to modulate biological processes for therapeutic benefit. This concept, termed mechanomedicine, offers an important strategy in disease diagnosis and therapy. In this Review, we first introduce biomechanics and mechanobiology as the underlying principles of mechanomedicine and outline the properties and measurements of key mechanical signatures in health and disease. We then explore the application of mechanomedicine across scales, from organ-level and tissue-level diagnostics to cellular and molecular mechanotherapeutics, including strategies for tissue regeneration and rehabilitation. Finally, we highlight challenges and opportunities in the clinical translation of mechanomedicine approaches, in particular with regards to the innovation of materials and devices, the manufacturing of cells and organoids, the definition and standardization of mechanical biomarkers, and the integration of artificial intelligence.