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Vaginal intraepithelial neoplasia (VaIN) is a relatively uncommon and asymptomatic preneoplastic lesion associated with human papillomavirus (HPV) of the lower genital tract. The diagnosis is usually suspected with abnormal cervical-vaginal cytology and confirmed by punch biopsy. The treatment of VaIN varies depending on several factors including grade of the dysplasia, location, and extent of lesions, patients’ characteristics including age and onset of HPV infection, and previous therapeutic procedures. The four main treatment methods include surgery, ablation, topical therapies, and radiation (brachytherapy). All treatments have reasonably good success but are limited by their unique side effects, and all are associated with some risk for recurrence. Patients require long-term monitoring to survey for recurrence or progression to vaginal cancer. HPV vaccination is a promising strategy to reduce the incidence of VaIN and vaginal cancer.

Biomaterials and biological cells possess a number of different properties; amongst them, mechanical properties are extremely important in studies and applications about tissue engineering, design and development of implants, surgical tools and medical devices for treatments and diagnosis of diseases. Changes in mechanical properties such as a stiffness of cells are often the signs of changes in cell physiology or diseases in tissues; and studying these changes can lead to the development of devices for early disease detection and new drug delivery mechanisms. This paper presents advances in recent years in experimental testing and computational modelling for characterisation of mechanical properties of biomaterials and biological cells, in which the presented research projects and related studies were mainly implemented by research groups in the UK. The recent important findings as well as research directions and challenges are emphasised and discussed, to open channels for research collaborations in development of cost-effective medical diagnosis and treatment solutions.