High-throughput imaging methodologies for biomechanical testing

High-throughput strategies involving arrays of artificial tissue constructs offer tremendous promise for clinical diagnostics and fundamental cell biomechanics research. These tissue constructs consist of cells cultured in a well-defined three-dimensional environment, and are becoming increasingly useful tools as researchers begin to overcome the challenges of statistical sample-to-sample variability through these high-throughput techniques. While the cell culture techniques for high-throughput screening of these tissue constructs are well established, many challenges persist in high-throughput strategies for probing changes to biomechanics induced, for example, in response to a specific drug. However, advances are being made in applying many of the wide range of imaging techniques described in this handbook to high-throughput testing, and these hold great potential. In this chapter, we review three major imaging approaches that have begun to show potential for high-throughput biomechanical testing, including optical imaging, mechanical imaging, and ion-conductance imaging.