Multiscale Mechanical Modeling of Biological Tissues and Interfaces: Structure, Growth, and Function Across Scales

The mechanical behavior of biological tissues emerges from molecular architecture, extracellular matrix organization, cellular activity, biochemical signaling, and tissue-level loading across multiple spatial and temporal scales. Despite major advances in biomechanics and computational modeling, the field still lacks unified frameworks that connect molecular composition and cellular processes to tissue-level function. This gap limits progress in disease modeling, implant design, tissue engineering, and therapeutic innovation.In soft tissues, the extracellular matrix, including collagen, proteoglycans, and elastic fibers, plays a central role in viscoelasticity, energy storage, structural organization, and mechanotransduction. Collagen fiber organization, described macroscopically by Langer’s lines, remains a key example of how molecular and supramolecular architecture can shape tissue-level mechanics. Understanding how aging, cancer, injury, and genetic disorders alter these multiscale relationships remains clinically important and incompletely resolved.At mineralized tissues and biological interfaces, multiscale computational models provide new ways to study mechanotransduction, adaptation, and remodeling. Bone–soft tissue interfaces, including entheses, osteochondral units, intervertebral disc endplates, and meniscal attachments, remain especially challenging because they involve sharp transitions in stiffness, composition, and biological function. Finite element modeling, reaction-diffusion systems, and growth mechanics offer complementary approaches to simulate tissue development, morphogenesis, ossification, remodeling, and pathological disruption, with applications in scaffold design and regenerative medicine.This Research Topic aims to bring together research on extracellular matrix mechanics, multiscale finite element modeling, reaction-diffusion frameworks, and growth mechanics to advance an integrated understanding of biological tissue mechanics from molecule to organ. We welcome contributions that bridge at least two levels of biological organization, including molecular, cellular, tissue, and organ scales.Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:• Molecular and supramolecular mechanics of collagen and extracellular matrix networks• Viscoelastic, poroelastic, and fiber-reinforced modeling of soft tissues• Mechanotransduction, aging, injury, and pathology in extracellular matrix-rich tissues• Multiscale finite element modeling of soft and mineralized tissues• Osteocyte mechanobiology and bone–soft tissue interfaces• Reaction-diffusion models of morphogenesis, ossification, and tissue patterning• Growth mechanics, tissue remodeling, and adaptation• Scaffold design, degradation modeling, and tissue engineering applications• Effects of cancer, osteoporosis, genetic disorders, and degenerative disease on tissue biomechanics• Translation of multiscale tissue mechanics into therapeutic, diagnostic, or medical device innovationWe welcome Original Research, Review, Methods, and Perspective articles. Topic editors: Frederick Silver, THIAGARAJAN GANESH, Diego A Garzón-Alvarado Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/79599/multiscale-mechanical-modeling-of-biological-tissues-and-interfaces-structure-growth-and-function-across-scales