"Mechanics of the Cell"

Mechanics of the Cell (1st edition)

Unlike the concrete and steel of buildings and bridges, most mechanical elements of biological cells are soft, in that their shape is subject to significant thermal fluctuations. For instance, the compression resistance of a protein network may be orders of magnitude less than the air we breathe. Aimed at senior undergraduates and graduate students in science and biomedical engineering this text explores the architecture of the cell's envelope and internal scaffolding. The analysis is performed within a consistent theoretical framework, although the reader can navigate from the introductory material to the results and biological applications without working through the intervening mathematics.

420 pages, including index and glossary
270 black and white diagrams
135 "end of chapter" problems, grouped into biological applications and formal extensions.

Published in 2002 by Cambridge University Press.
ISBNs: hardback 0521792584, paperback 0521796814
The book can also be ordered from:

Cambridge North America
Amazon.com

About this site

This web page is a forum for updating Mechanics of the Cell and providing background and extensions to material that was necessarily constrained by page limits or pedagogy. However embarrassing, new corrections will be happily received and posted (with attribution as appropriate).

Table of contents

Sample material from Chapters 1 - 2

Typographical and other errors

Links to courses on cell mechanics

Updates and supplements to appendices

Table of contents for Mechanics of the Cell

Chapter 1 - Introduction to the cell
Part I - Rods and Ropes
Chapter 2 - Polymers
Chapter 3 - Two-dimensional networks
Chapter 4 - Three-dimensional networks
Part II - Membranes
Chapter 5 - Biomembranes
Chapter 6 - Membrane undulations
Part III - The Whole Cell
Chapter 7 - The simplest cells
Chapter 8 - Intermembrane forces
Chapter 9 - Dynamic filaments
Chapter 10 - Mechanical designs
Appendices
Appendix A - Animal cells and tissues
Appendix B - Molecular building blocks
Appendix C - Elements of statistical mechanics
Appendix D - Elasticity

Sample material

The following links provide samples of the first two chapters of Mechanics of the Cell stored as PDF files. The file "Chap. 1" is the finished version from the book, and contains the table of contents etc. Chap. 2 demonstrates the level of mathematics employed throughout the book, but is not the final copy - it still contains typos.

Chapter 1 - Introduction to the cell

Chapter 2 - Polymers

Updates and supplements to appendices

The appendices in the text are necessarily brief and may not provide adequate background material for students, depending on their undergraduate studies. Further, the 400-page limit on the text forced the omission of some important topics that would typically be taught in a biophysics course. What follows are extensions of the text material, which will be reviewed and polished as time permits. The topics are organized according to the appendix they most closely resemble.

Appendix B - The cell's molecular building blocks

Chemical bonds and geometry

Appendix C - Elementary statistical mechanics
These notes provide an introduction to the concepts of statistical mechanics and the ensembles most commonly encountered in biophysics. Students with only freshman physics should find the material accessible, as the first 12 pages of notes are largely conceptual. A more thorough treatment of statistical mechanics can be found in PHYS 445, which is based on Reif's Statistical and Thermal Physics

Concepts of statistical physics

Interacting systems

Ensembles

Partition function

Grand canonical ensemble

Appendix D - Elasticity

Physical properties of matter

Elasticity in two dimensions