• Tim Ricken, University of Stuttgart
• Oliver Röhrle, University of Stuttgart
• Silvia Budday, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg

Computational mechanics and numerical methods are powerful tools to assist early diagnosis of diseases and advance modern treatment strategies. However, the complexity of living systems makes entirely new demands on mechanical models and numerical solution methods. To allow for predictive simulations which are useful to the clinical community and can be implemented in daily clinical practice, it is essential to combine mechanics with biochemistry or electrophysiology through multi-physics modeling. These models can provide a gateway to bridge the scales from metabolic processes on the subcellular level to macroscopic mechanics, to incorporate the tissue response to mechanical stimuli through coupling strategies, and to intelligently integrate experimental data for model calibration and validation.

Various diseases effect growth or remodeling processes in biological tissue. These changes in structure have a significant impact on tissue behaviour as well as metabolic processes. Furthermore, the blood perfusion with its nutrient supply is affected by tissue growth and the harmed organ impairs the functionality of the whole body. Computational modelling of growth and remodeling processes in biological tissue allows a more detailed, patient-specific assessment, prediction and therapy of individual diseases. Another important challenge is to not only consider individual processes independently, but to incorporate the interplay of different functional units in the context of a whole biological system.

This minisymposium focuses on novel approaches to master those challenges. We welcome highly interdisciplinary contributions bringing together the expertise of different fields such as: mechanical modeling, numerics, data science, and clinical application.

We want to share the organ modeling experience in view of the used approaches such as:
multi-field, multi-scale, multi-phase and coupled problems techniques.

The goal of this minisymposium is to create valuable synergies between researchers working on different biological systems, potentially on different scales, to bring computational modeling one step closer to clinical practice.