Escherichia coli – more commonly known as E. coli – is a leading cause of diarrhoea-associated hospitalisation. However, E. coli does not always cause disease. Alongside thousands of other bacterial species, E. coli lives inside and on the surface of the human body. Numerous different strains of E. coli have been identified by analysing their genomes.

Humans inherit a version of each gene – an allele – from each parent. Through standard DNA analysis, it is not possible to know which allele of a given gene came from the mother and which came from the father. Understanding which allele came from which parent is known as ‘haplotyping’ or ‘genetic phasing’. This is particularly important when a gene has multiple changes in the gene sequence – called mutations.

Cardiovascular diseases are the most common cause of death around the globe. Heart failure is a particular type of cardiovascular disease, which occurs when the heart is not able to pump blood around the body as well as it should. Over 26 million people in the world are currently affected by heart failure and this number is increasing every year.

The liver plays a vital role in keeping us healthy, by controlling levels of sugars and fats in our blood, as well as clearing the blood of toxins. Chronic liver disease affects around 25% of the population and is reported to be the third largest cause of premature death in the UK. Liver disease can occur as the result of long-term consumption of alcohol or viral hepatitis, but the fastest growing cause is non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, associated with obesity and type 2 diabetes.

The influenza virus – commonly known as flu – is a serious public health concern. There are an estimated 1 billion cases of influenza each year, causing approximately 650,000 deaths globally.

Antimicrobial drugs treat infections by killing or slowing the growth of the responsible pathogens. However, antimicrobial resistance occurs when the bacteria develop defence mechanisms against the very drugs intended to kill them. Infections due to resistant bacteria can be extremely difficult and even impossible to treat, meaning that antimicrobial resistance presents a major threat to animal, environmental and human health.

Extracellular biophysical cues have a profound influence on a wide range of cell behaviors, including growth, motility, differentiation, apoptosis, gene expression, adhesion, and signal transduction. Cells not only respond to definitively mechanical cues from the extracellular matrix (ECM) but can also sometimes alter the mechanical properties of the matrix and hence influence subsequent matrix-based cues in both physiological and pathological processes. Interactions between cells and materials in vitro can modify cell phenotype and ECM structure, whether intentionally or inadvertently. Interactions between cell and matrix mechanics in vivo are of particular importance in a wide variety of disorders, including cancer, central nervous system injury, fibrotic diseases, and myocardial infarction. Both the in vitro and in vivo effects of this coupling between mechanics and biology hold important implications for clinical applications.