Conclusions

In this dossier, we have reviewed the state of the art of the major techniques used today to study cells from a mechanical angle. Clearly, our understanding of these phenomena and their modelling are still in their infancy, and it is essential to build up a body of experimental work using all these techniques, in a complementary manner.

In this sense, the systematic variation of time and size scales should be very instructive. Promising experiments in which the displacements imposed are much slower than those envisaged to date, and in which it becomes possible to penetrate a cell or tissue from one side to the other without damaging it