A recent review by Cluster Postdoctoral Researchers Magdalena Fladung, Yi Chen, Doctoral Researchers Alexander Berkes, Natalie Munding, and PIs Motomu Tanaka, Martin Wegener, and Martin Bastmeyer explores the potential of elastic microscaffolds with metamaterial properties in mechanobiology. The study shows how auxetic materials with negative Poisson’s ratio and soft PDMS-based 3D microprinted structures can create finely tuned mechanical environments for cells, opening up new possibilities for tissue engineering and single-cell force measurement. A key challenge remains the transition from two-dimensional to three-dimensional systems to better model in vivo conditions.
