Welcome to the Workshop for Multiscale Methods and Validation in Medicine and Biology.  This thematic conference the third in a series. The first two meetings, held in San Francisco in 2012 and Berkeley in 2014, brought experimental and computational researchers together in a forum to discuss the challenges of predictive modeling and validation for biomechanics and mechanobiology across scales. This thematic conference is unique in its combined emphasis on connecting computation with experimental data for biological problems. The size and focus of the meeting enables scientific connections that uncommon at the other existing conferences on either computational mechanics or bioengineering, both because of size and the lack of focus.

Biomechanics involves the study of the interactions of physical forces with biological systems at all scales, including molecular, cellular, tissue, organ, and species levels. The emerging field of Mechanobiology focuses on how cells produce and respond to mechanical forces, bridging the science of mechanics with the disciplines of biophysics and molecular biology. The theme of this conference is the linking of disparate spatial and temporal scales using experimentation, image analysis, visualization, and computing for the purpose of investigating some of the most intriguing problems in biological and medicine science and technology. Discussions will relate to state-of-the-art research in computational sciences that investigate phenomena in Biomechanics and Mechanobiology through a multiscale perspective or by providing efficient, coarse-grained description at the same scale. Emphasis will be placed on novel techniques in computing, experimentation, visualization, and multidisciplinary research approaches that demonstrate successful synergies; computational reconstruction of experimental findings; and experimental and visualization techniques that support verification and validation of computational models.