The special sessions are a traditional element of the CMBBE Symposium programme and focus on new, emerging research areas and developments in the field. They offer a combination of invited and other contributions from the general abstract submission on selected topics.
Call for special sessions is now open! Submit your proposal by 30th July 2026!
Chairs:
Francesca Berti, Politecnico di Milano, Italy,
Benigno Marco Fanni, BioCardioLab – FTGM, Italy
This symposium will focus on multiscale computational modeling of congenital disorders across developmental stages, from fetal life onward. The symposium aims to bring together researchers and clinicians working on patient-specific and translational approaches to support diagnosis, treatment planning, and surgical or interventional strategies. Applications include, but are not limited to, congenital heart diseases, neural tube defects, congenital diaphragmatic hernia, airway and pulmonary defects. Contributions spanning different modeling scales and methodologies, from reduced-order models to high-fidelity structural, computational fluid dynamics, and fluid–structure interaction simulations, are welcome.
Chairs:
Philippe Zysset, University of Bern, ARTORG Centre for Biomedical Research, Switzerland,
Anna Gustafsson, Lund University, Division of Biomedical Engineering, Sweden
Clinical assessment of fracture risk and implant stability requires accurate FE methods to simulate the mechanical behaviour of bone and bone-implant systems. While morphology-elastic and yield property relationships of adult human bone are increasingly well characterised, quantitative prediction of the semi-brittle, post-yield behaviour remains challenging. Yielding of bone relates to the nucleation, accumulation and coalescence of diffuse damage at the nanoscale into linear microcracks that can propagate in the microstructure.
The aim of this session is to gain insight into the current computational models available to understand the whole process of damage nucleation, strain localisation and crack propagation.
Chairs:
Thomas Tarnaud, Ghent University, Netherlands,
Emmeric Tanghe, Ghent University, Netherlands
Focused ultrasound (FUS) has gained attention in the last two decades, due to its capability to modulate neuronal activity non-invasively and with high spatial resolution. However, the underlying mechanisms of FUS are not yet well understood.
Here, computational modelling is valuable to predict the implications of proposed tentative underlying mechanisms, enabling experimental validation. Furthermore, computational models can guide neural engineering studies, aiming to optimize the ultrasound transducer and insonication protocol.
In this session, FUS models are presented, including both mechanical models, simulating the harmonic pressure, radiation force, tissue displacement and acoustic streaming distribution, and computational neuroscience models, aiming to predict the resulting neuronal response.
Chairs:
Giulia Luraghi, Politecnico di Milano, Italy,
Giorgia Bosi, University College London, UK,
Benedetta Grossi, Humanitas University, Italy
This special session will focus on the critical challenges of credibility assessment, verification, and validation (V&V) for digital twins in biomechanics and biomedical engineering. As digital twin technologies become increasingly central to clinical decision-making and device development, ensuring their reliability, robustness, and regulatory acceptance is essential. The session will bring together experts to discuss methodological frameworks, uncertainty quantification, data assimilation, and standards for model fidelity. Contributions will highlight applications across scales, from organ-level simulations to patient-specific models, fostering dialogue on best practices and future directions to enhance trust and translational impact of digital twins in healthcare.
Chairs:
Ali Akyildiz, TU Delft / ErasmusMC, Netherlands,
Michele Marino, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy
This special session focuses on cutting-edge computational and mathematical approaches to understand and model vascular diseases and adaptation. We welcome contributions that explore the biomechanical, biochemical, and mechanobiological mechanisms driving such as arterial stiffening, atherosclerosis, aneurysm development, vascular aging, and post-intervention remodeling. By integrating multi-scale, multi-physics, and data-driven methodologies, this session aims to bridge the gap between theoretical modeling and clinical translation, offering deeper insights into disease progression and patient-specific therapeutic interventions.
Chairs:
Alexandra Tits, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Germany,
Davide Ruffoni, University of Liège, Belgium,
Richard Weinkamer, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Germany
This special session will explore computational strategies to characterize the architecture and functional role of the osteocyte lacunocanalicular network (LCN), a dense porous system involved in transport, signalling, mineralization, and mechanosensing in bone. Contributions will address image-based workflows applied to confocal laser scanning microscopy and synchrotron radiation phase-contrast nano-CT datasets, including segmentation, network analysis, morphometry, and fluid-flow or mechanobiological modelling. Particular emphasis will be placed on the interplay between LCN architecture and transport properties, and on how these features vary with anatomical location, tissue age, disease, and local mechanical environment. The symposium aims to connect together experts in advanced imaging, quantitative computation, and bone biology.
Chairs:
Hans Kainz, University of Vienna, Austria,
Ilse Jonkers, KU Leuven, Belgium
Mechanical loading plays a fundamental role in maintaining musculoskeletal health and driving biological adaptation. Gait retraining has emerged as a promising non-invasive intervention to modify joint loading, with applications ranging from injury prevention and rehabilitation to the treatment of musculoskeletal disorders. This session brings together researchers investigating how changes in movement patterns influence joint mechanics and mechanobiological responses across multiple scales. Presentations will highlight advances in gait analysis, computational modelling, and experimental methods that improve our understanding of loadinduced adaptation and support the development of evidencebased gait retraining strategies to optimize musculoskeletal health.
Chairs:
Paul Van Liedekerke, Ghent University, Belgium,
José Manuel García Aznar, Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain,
Andreas Buttenschoen, University of Massachusetts, USA,
Dirk Drasdo, Inria Saclay, France
Understanding cellular mechanics, mechanobiology and mechanotransduction is key to predicting cell differentiation, tissue morphogenesis, homeostasis and disease progression. This session will highlight recent advances in multicellular modelling of in vitro and in vivotissues, capturing mechanical interactions within hierarchically organised tissues, comprising cells, extracellular matrix and interstitial fluid.
We welcome contributions that target phenomena and systems, including:
• tumour growth
• organoids
• cell migration, vascularisation
• embryonic development.
We also welcome contributions on method and model development, such as agent-based models, continuum approaches and hybrid models.
Chairs:
Annette Caenen, Ghent University and KU Leuven, Belgium,
Richard Lopata, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands
This session highlights recent advances in ultrasound-based mechanical tissue characterization. Topics include elastography methods for tissue stiffness estimation, structural imaging approaches such as backscatter tensor imaging, and emerging ultrasound-based methods that not only extract richer biomechanical information but also offer a viable, non-destructive alternative to traditional mechanical testing.
Chairs:
Solveig Fadness, NTNU, Norway,
Annette Caenen, Ghent University and KU Leuven, Belgium
This session highlights recent advances in ultrasound methods for characterizing flow and microvascular perfusion. Developments in flow imaging provide quantitative markers of blood-flow patterns, such as vortex dynamics in the ventricle, while perfusion-oriented techniques offer insight into microvasculature supply. Emerging super-resolution ultrasound methods extend these capabilities by enabling detailed visualization of the microvasculature and its flow pathways.
Chairs:
Joris Degroote, Ghent University, Netherlands,
Patrick Segers, Ghent University, Netherlands
Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) in biomechanics occurs between blood, cerebrospinal fluid, air … and the surrounding tissue. Its simulation is challenging due to often large motion and deformation, possible contact, complex material behaviour and the appearance of rupture or tears. Furthermore, the boundary conditions on both the fluid side and structure side are often non-trivial and there is uncertainty on the parameters which can change over long time scales compared to the fast dynamics. Hence, there is a wide variety in approaches and this session aims to bring them together to enhance learning in the community.
Chairs:
Mathias Peirlinck, TU Delft, Netherlands,
Beatrice Moscoloni, UGent and TU Delft, Netherlands
Sex differences influence anatomy, tissue properties, disease progression, treatment response, and medical-device performance, yet they remain insufficiently integrated into computational biomechanics and biomedical engineering. This session will bring together researchers developing sex-aware models, experiments, and digital twins across cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, and soft-tissue biomechanics. Contributions may address sex-specific constitutive behavior, growth and remodeling, virtual cohorts, medical-device evaluation, clinical translation, uncertainty quantification, and the distinction between biological sex and related demographic or hormonal factors. The goal is to move beyond post-hoc subgroup analysis toward predictive computational frameworks that explicitly account for sex-dependent variability in biomedical engineering.
Cancer mechanobiology
Cancer mechanobiology represents a new frontier in cancer research. It is providing a large body of knowledge on the mechanical role of the local microenvironment as a co-conspirator of tumor cells in tumor onset and progression. In particular, it is now widely appreciated that, during tumor growth, morpho-physical features of both cells and their neighborhood ECM are altered and these alterations result into a departure from the homeostatic cell-ECM mechanical equilibrium towards a new status characterized by an increased stiffness of the cell microenvironment. The tissues affected by malignant tumors are characterized by ECM accumulation, that leads to a severe fibrotic response, known as desmoplasia, and consequent tumor stiffening.
Furthermore, the degree of stiffened tumor mechanical microenvironment appears to be correlated with very important pathways associated with the cell malignant transformation.
Digital twins for personalised medicine
Digital twins can be used to model a patient’s physiological characteristics to deliver personalised medicine. It is an ambitious paradigm looking at the human in an end-to-end approach, across all scales, unifying the virtual physiological human and the daily health behaviour models and technologies.
Microscale observations and microscale modelling in cancer
Chairs: Qiyao Peng, Leiden University, The Netherlands;
Fred Vermolen, Hasselt University, Belgium
Cancers form a set of degenerative diseases that are caused by cell mutations and uncontrolled proliferation. Cancers affect lots of people worldwide. Often combinations of genetic compositions and lifestyle may enhance or inhibit the development of cancer. In order to mitigate or even cure cancer, practitioners choose appropriate therapies from a set of classical strategies. In order to improve and optimize therapy, quantitative knowledge is indispensable. This minisymposium links computer simulations to (clinical) observations.
Modelling and simulation of musculoskeletal mechanobiology
Chairs: Areti Papastavrou, The Technical University of Nuremberg, Germany
Peter Pivonka, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Physiological loading plays an essential role in the growth, development and maintenance of the human musculoskeletal system. This session is dedicated to both the different musculoskeletal tissues, such as bone, muscle, cartilage and tendon, and the loading scenarios across the different length scales, ranging from muscle forces to mechanobiological cell feedback. To explore the relationships, insights gained through various biomedical technologies such as medical imaging and motion capture techniques are beneficial and are integrated into mathematical modelling and simulation.
Novel methods to advance diagnostic and treatment value of medical imaging for valvular disease and their intervention
Chairs: Pascal Leprince, Pitié Salpétrière Hospital France
Zahra K. Motamed, McMaster University, ON, Canada
The use of medical imaging has substantially increased over the past decade. The remarkable advances in medical imaging, have motivated the development of new tools that can augment the power of medical imaging to provide information beyond anatomy-based diagnosis for patients with valvular diseases. This session is about valvular diseases and their intervention and covers:
- Advanced image processing for diagnosis, monitoring and prediction
- Advanced signal processing for diagnosis, monitoring and prediction
- Integration of medical imaging and computational modelling for intervention predictions
- Personalization of treatment through image-based hypothesis testing
Reproductive biomechanics: computational modelling of vaginal delivery and its complications
Chairs: Cédric Laurent , LEM 3 Université de Lorraine, France
Pauline Lecomte, LaMcube, France
Vaginal delivery is associated with risks of soft tissue damage or rupture, having serious consequences on mother’s quality of life. Additionally, various devices may be used in the case of operative vaginal delivery, whose relevance and consequences are still needed to be addressed and compared. Experimental studies are limited by the difficulty of collecting clinical data, which may be overcome by using computational models: the challenges and limitations associated with the development of such simulations constitute the topic of this session, in view of predicting the effect of clinical practices on the risks associated with parturition.
Verification and validation of computational models
Chairs: Nele Famaey, KU Leuven, Belgium
Sam Evans, Cardiff University, United Kingdom
Heleen Fehervary, KU Leuven, Belgium
Verification and validation are critical if computational models are to be used to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of medical devices. This session will cover all aspects of experimental, mathematical and computational verification and validation techniques, including in vitro and in vivo measurements, material properties and test methods as well as best practice and regulatory aspects.
Current challenges of in vivo subject-specific modelling of biological tissue
Chairs: Pierre-Yves Rohan, Institut de Biomécanique Humaine Georges Charpak Arts et Métiers ParisTech, France
Bethany Keenan, Cardiff University, United Kingdom
Human soft tissues are complex materials that can exhibit nonlinear, time dependent, inhomogeneous, and anisotropic behaviors. Biological tissues also grow, remodel, and adapt to external mechanical stimuli. The development and implementation of hybrid experimental – computational methods to characterize mechanical properties is a critical challenge for the whole community. The choice of appropriate constitutive laws, the personalization of the constitutive parameters and the boundary conditions to which the tissues are subjected to are important for investigating the underlying mechanisms that either drive normal physiology or contribute to the onset and development of diseases in soft tissues. The development of techniques that can be employed in clinical routine and which allow to discriminate between different subgroups is also paramount for clinical translation. This session aims to facilitate discussions around these challenges based most recent works dealing with constitutive modelling, personalization and their clinical applications.
Computational evaluation of orthopaedic devices
Chair: Ruth Wilcox, University of Leeds, Great Britain
Computational approaches are increasingly being used to assess the effects of patient and surgical variables on the performance of orthopaedic devices, both to reduce time to market during device design, and to inform patient stratification or surgical technique once in use. This session will cover the pipeline of computational methods that are employed, from the analysis of in vivo measurements, image processing and musculoskeletal modelling used to derive patient load and motion information, through to finite element assessment of the device performance.
Necessity and importance of high-performance computing to address the scalability issue of biomedical-related computational studies
Chairs: Mojtaba Barzegari and Liesbet Geris, Department of Mechanical Engineering, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
The use of computational modelling in medical-related studies has risen exponentially in recent years, and more reliable developed models are being released each year for various sub-fields of this domain. Several hurdles exist to accelerate the uptake of said models into clinical practice. Currently, much effort is put into establishing model credibility, through verification and validation, and regulatory context of the simulation predictions. Another hurdle, having received less attention thus far, is that of scalability of the developed codes and models to benefit from rapidly growing computing power and advancements in hardware resources. As demonstrated by a few international biomedical computational modelling and simulation-oriented initiatives like CompBioMed, similar to other fields, having scalable models that use the available computing resources more efficiently allows constructing of more comprehensive models that capture more realistic phenomena, leading to more accurate simulations and predictions. Taking advantage of high-performance computing (HPC) techniques can help the field to move towards more reliable and accurate computational models for personalized medicine.
Numerical models of mechanobiology
Chairs: Ulrich Simon, Scientific Computing Centre, University of Ulm, Germany
Numerical Models describing biological processes depending on mechanical signals are increasingly used in research. Some models are trying to describe the complex time dependent coupling of such biological processes with the non-constant behavior of smart or degradable implants. Some other models might even be close to jump to a clinical usage.
This special session will focus on recent developments in the simulation of fracture healing at tissue level. It covers all kinds of time dependent reactions such as healing, remodeling, maturation, ingrowth, degradation, and differentiation of biological tissues and involved implant materials.
Optimal control of human movement
Chairs: Benjamin Michaud and Mickael Begon, École de Kinésiologie et des Sciences de l’Activité Physique (ÉKSAP), Faculté de Médecine, Université de Montréal, Canada
As a result of the development of the computing power of computers and to the release of efficient optimization software, optimal control has recently gained in popularity in many research fields. In the field of biomechanics, thanks to its versatility, optimal control was successfully used in gait analysis, orthotics and prosthetics design, sport, and even performing arts. It is a powerful tool used to synthesize human movements, to predict innovative techniques, to track recorded motion, and so on. This special session will cover the most recent advances in optimal control in biomechanics, from the stand point of software development to clinical applications.
Tools for quantifying cell mechanics
Chairs: Hans Van Oosterwyck and Mar Condor, University of Leuven, Belgium
The importance of cell mechanics has long been recognized for cell fate and function. However, the analysis of how cells sense and respond to mechanical forces has been limited by the availability of techniques that can measure these forces in living cells while simultaneously measuring changes in cell and molecular activity. To confront this challenge new engineering methods combined with computational models have been developed in the last years to measure and manipulate the mechanical properties of cells as well as their internal cytoskeletal and nucleus.
In this session we will provide a space to present and discuss the latest advancements in the development of new tools for quantifying cell mechanics, including some of the most relevant ones such as traction force microscopy techniques.
When biomechanics meets medical imaging for cardiac assessment
Organised by Société de Biomécanique
Chairs: Valérie Deplano, IRPHE, Marseille, France; Damien Garcia, CREATIS, Lyon, France
Biomechanics and medical imaging can go hand in hand to help the clinician make a more accurate diagnosis. A brief overview will be given on recent methodologies related to the evaluation of cardiac function. Beyond a simple visual tool, it will be exemplified how medical imaging can also be a biomechanical instrument.
Application of machine learning in modeling organs and tissues
Applications of numerical modelling in medical device design and development
Augmented/virtual reality for clinical intervention
Cardiac modelling
Cerebral flow (blood flow, interstitial flow, cerebrospinal flow, computation and imaging)
Chair: Shigeo Wada, Osaka University, Japan
Computational models in women’s health
Chair: Kristin Meyers, Columbia University, USA
Computer methods for epidemic management
Chair: Paolo Di Giamberardino, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy; Daniela Iacoviello, Università degli Studi di Roma ‘La Sapienza’, Italy
Image-based patient-specific modelling
Chair: Richard Lopata, Eidhoven University of Technology, The Netherland
Image processing toward more realistic patient-specific biomechanical modelling and device design
Chair: Joao Tavares, University of Porto, Portugal
Inteligent rehabilitation technologies
Chairs: Fong-Chin Su, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan; Hirokazu Kato, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Ikoma, Japan
Modelling heart valve function
Chair: Michael S. Sacks, The University of Texas at Austin, USA