Biomechanics is the study of the structure, function, and motion of the mechanical aspects of biological systems. From the level of continuum mechanics, two problems are of high interest. One is to identify proper growth tensors to regenerate the morphologies and the stress state of the biological tissues or organs (such as the simulation of the bitter gourd above); the other is to relate the growth tensors to biological information, such as the genes and morphogens. The results in this field can give explanations for various growth phenomena in the view of continuum mechanics, and the underlying growth principles obtained have the potential to be used in the intervention of some diseases, and designing and optimizing biomimetic structures.
