This week long summer school will be the third in the series, following the previous successful summer schools held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in August 2006 (with a focus on infectious diseases) and the National university of Singapore (NUS) in July 2007 (with a focus on cancer). Strong laboratory experience and exposure to local research facilities will be provided in addition to introductory and advanced tutorials.

The objective of this summer school is to educate researchers and graduate students in the fundamentals of cell and molecular biomechanics and its applications in medicine, to provide an intense learning experience, and to facilitate interactions among engineers, biologists and clinicians. The goals are to help train a new generation of researchers with in-depth knowledge of biomechanics and molecular medicine and to help scientists and clinicians apply biomechanical approaches in biomolecular, cellular, tissue-level, animal-model and clinical studies.

The philosophy of the summer school is to emphasize basic concepts and problem-based learning in cell and molecular biomechanics, and integrating lecturing, in-class discussion, case-studies, and hands-on experience. All teaching activities will have a focus on a particular broad disease type each year: for example, infectious disease (2006), cancer (2007), and cardiovascular disease (2008). The core teaching material may remain the same, but the examples, case-studies and lab work is chosen based on the focus topic. The summer school will also include laboratory demonstration sessions linking theory to practice.

The summer school is expected to be particularly appealing to:

• Engineering or biology faculty and post-docs/researchers who wish to expand their research horizons and move into biomechanics and related disease studies;
• Students who want to learn molecular and cell biomechanics, but could not do so at their own institutions, or who want to get a different perspective from what they have learned and a closer link to disease studies;
• Medical researchers who have the need to learn basic biomechanics and are interested in applying biomechanics to their clinical investigations.