Recent years have witnessed the explosive growth of interests in the health-related research from all kinds of discipline perspectives. Given the greater complexity of biological problems and certain limitations of experimental investigations, computational modeling and simulation has been emerging as an indispensable and powerful tool to complement our experimental research at comparable length- and time-scale, or even to provide us a predictable capability for guiding material designs and disease diagnosis without the aid of experiments. In this talk, I would like to use two interesting health-related problems discussing the role of computational modeling and simulations in our daily research.

Cell-nanoparticle interactions: On one hand, the growing applications of nanomaterials pose serious concerns about their toxicity as they enter the human body via various pathways including the respiratory system, skin absorption, intravenous injection and implantation. On the other hand, nanomaterials show promising potentials in medical imaging and gene/drug delivery. Understanding the fundamental physics of the cell-nanomaterial interaction in the process of endocytosis is not only of paramount significance to the evaluation of beneficial and hazardous effects of nanotechnology but also to the medical applications such as gene/drug delivery and medical imaging. In the first part of this talk, I would like to provide a novel way to explore the mechanics of cell-nanomaterial interactions via a systematic and multiscale computational methodology with a focus on the effects of nanoparticle surface chemistry, shape, and stiffness on the cellular uptake and release processes, and to establish effective guidelines for designing controllable drug delivery vehicles from the computational perspective.

Brain folding: The most critical process in the healthy development of the human brain during the fetal stage is cerebral folding. Many studies have shown that knowledge of cortical folding is key to interpreting the normal development of the human brain during the early stages. Cognitive or physiological difficulties and problems, e.g. epilepsy, retardation, autism and schizophrenia, are consequences of abnormal cortical folding in the fetal stage. In the second part of this talk, I would like to discuss that in additional to biological parameters mechanical properties such as the stiffness and growth speed of the cortex can play a crucial role in gyrification and normal development of the brain, thereby offering clues towards novel diagnostics and treatments of neurological disorders during early brain development.