Nanobiomechanics (also bionanomechanics) is a field in nanoscience and biomechanics that combines the powerful tools of nanomechanics to explore fundamental science of biomaterials and biomechanics.

Since the introduction by its founder Yuan-Cheng Fung, the field of biomechanics has become one of the branches of mechanics and bioscience. For many years, biomechanics has examined tissue. Through advancements in nanoscience, the scale of the forces that could be measured and also the scale of observation of biomaterials was reduced to "nano" and "pico" level. Consequently, it became possible to measure the mechanical properties of biological materials at nanoscale. This is relevant to improve tissue engineering processes and cellular therapy.

Most of the biological materials have different hierarchical levels, and the smallest ones refer to the nanoscale. For example, bone has up to seven levels of biological organization, and the smallest level, i.e., single collagen fibril and hydroxylapatite minerals have dimensions well below 100 nm. Therefore, being able to probe properties at this small scales provides a great opportunity for better understanding the fundamental properties of these materials. For example, measurements have shown that nanomechanical heterogeneity exists even within single collagen fibrils as small as 100 nm.

One of the other most relevant topics in this field is measurement of tiny forces on living cells to recognize changes caused by different diseases, including disease progression. For example, it has been shown that red blood cells infected by malaria are 10 times stiffer than normal cells. Likewise, it has been shown that cancer cells are 70 percent softer than normal cells. Early signs of aging cartilage and osteoarthritis has been shown by looking at the changes in the tissue at the nanoscale.

The common methods in nanobiomechanics include atomic force microscopy (AFM), nanoindentation, and application of nanoparticles. These and other methods may be applied to relevant materials, for example: bone and its hierarchical constituents such as single collagen fibrils, single living cells, actin filaments and microtubules.

For a description of atomic force microscopy (AFM), see atomic force microscopy.

AFM has been used to study the nanoscale level of the cytoskeleton and its components, the extracellular matrix, and the cell's environment. Understanding the cell's mechanics, including at a nanoscale level, is highly connected to understanding these molecules and structures. As all of this affects how the cell behaves, it is beneficial for tissue engineering. One example of this is when researchers applied tapping mode AFM to study repair bone from genetically modified mesenchymal cells. Via this method, they were able to image structures in the bone on a nano scale that suggested collagen was present.

AFM has also been applied to measure the mechanical properties of proteins and other biomolecules in a variety of conditions through extension and compression experiments. Further, it has been applied to the mapping of cells' and membranes' mechanical properties, mechanotransduction, how cells adhere or detach based on the surface they are on and their own molecules, and the stiffness of cells.