AFM-based nanomechanical mapping and mechanobiology, two unforeseen fields that have lifted each other up

AFM is not for the faint of heart. It has never been for these 40 years since its invention or for any of the modalities that have emerged. And among them, the initial concept of using AFM to measure cell mechanics was simply brazen. On the one hand, those pioneers hacked an imaging tool optimised for minimal mechanical interaction between probe and sample, and used it to locally indent living cells. On the other hand, they did so to measure stiffness of cells, a feature that no one in the cell biology or biomedicine communities gave relevance to or even credit. Through their total disregard for the status quo, they helped establish two topics that today employ thousands of researchers worldwide: AFM for nanomechanical mapping of soft samples, and the research field of mechanobiology.