Congratulations to Dr Ruixin Lu and the team for publishing a front cover highlight in Soft Matter.

The authors developed a novel three-dimensional computational framework, which can, for the first time, simultaneously predict the transient flow-induced deformation of a viscoelastic biological cell, the deformation-induced cell membrane damage, the damage-resulted membrane mechanical weakening and the enhanced cross-membrane intracellular transport of diffusive solutes including drugs.

The predictive computational framework may guide the design and optimisation of microfluidic devices, which use viscous forces of fluid flows to disrupt cell membranes to enhance intracellular delivery of various drugs. The work has attracted wide attention from the international communities, and received several scentific queries from the US, South Korea shortly following its publication.