European Society 
The 26th Congress of ESB will take place Online from 11 – 14 July 2021 and it will be organisd by the Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy
For more information esbiomech2021.org.
We are looking forward to receiving your contributions and to welcoming you at ESB2021 in Milan!
Mechanobiological modeling of regeneration and degeneration of soft musculoskeletal tissues
General description: The research in the biomechanics group is focused on understanding the link between mechanics and biology in the musculoskeletal system, including related pathologies and repair of skeletal tissues. Experimental studies, tissue characterisation, imaging and computational simulation techniques are used. The research is applied to problems in orthopaedics to develop better methods to understand and improve repair of musculoskeletal tissues.
Soft musculoskeletal tissues (knee joint tissues and tendons) all connect or transmit forces during movement in the body. Despite having specialized mechanical functions and tailored microstructures, they present with a similar gross composition based on a collagen network, small amounts of proteoglycans, and an extensive amount of water. In these projects we are looking to develop adaptive computational models of how the tissues respond and adapt to mechanical loading over time, and specifically how mechanical stimulation affects the tissue’s regenerative capacity after damage and the degenerative degradation in response to injury. We are looking for 2 PhD students to be dedicated to the following projects:
Project 1: Tendons connect muscles to bones and enable energy-efficient locomotion. The Achilles tendon is the largest and the most injured tendon in the human body. Ruptures often occur during recreational sport activities but can also be a result of ageing. Mechanical loading is a prerequisite for tendon healing. Controversial and often unsuccessful treatments of tendon ruptures could be improved by elucidating how loading affects the mechanobiological aspects of tendon healing. This position is within a larger project with the scope to elucidate how mechanical loading affects tendon regeneration.
The aim for PhD student 1 is to investigate how mechanical loading influences healing tendon function, structure and composition. The project includes to further develop and validate an existing adaptive mechanoregulatory model for tendon repair. This will be conducted based on collected experimental data from ongoing studies. The developed computational mechanobiological scheme will be key in the project to elucidate the mechanobiological mechanisms at play.
PhD student 1 would be actively working within the group and with collaborators within the TENDON_MECHBIO project funded by the European Research Council.
Project 2: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a common joint disease affecting over 40 million Europeans. The number of patients with OA will increase by over 70% in developed countries during the next 20 years, while direct and indirect costs are estimated to increase by over 300%. The most cost-effective and helpful treatment for the disease would simply be prevention. Since the progression of OA is highly subject-specific, prevention of the disease can only be possible when the progression can be predicted for an individual patient. The position is within a project with the overall aim to develop a tool to predict the onset and progression of osteoarthritis in the knee joint tissues due to daily loading conditions. The consortium will combine patient-specific motion analysis and computational modelling approaches for OA diagnostics, personalized prediction, and optimal treatment.
The goal for PhD student 2 is to develop and implement constitutive material models and mechanobiological adaptive models of knee joint tissues in a finite element based mechanobiological framework of the knee. The framework will be validated against tissue specific experimental and clinical data available within the collaborative network and overall prediction of tissue degeneration during OA.
PhD student 2 would be actively working with international collaborators within the MathKOA project funded by NovoNordisk Foundation.
Approach: Both projects include designing and developing numerical framework, followed by simulations and data analysis. Understanding and utilizing experimentally available data is important.
More information: https://lu.varbi.com/en/what:job/jobID:439902/
SAVE THE DATES: JOIN US FOR THE ESB 2022 Congress in PORTO Portugal, 26 – 29 JUNE, 2022!
Submission for perspective talks is now open!
Submission deadline: November 30, 2021
Perspective talks:
-> are given by a senior researcher (group leader/Principal Investigator)
-> will open each parallel session and should be a “mini-keynote” with focus on a cutting edge, coherent body of research
-> their objective is to increase intergenerational networking and to give young scientists the opportunity to learn from those with more experience
For submissions:
https://www.conftool.com/esbiomech2022/
More info:
Bone is a living tissue that is remodeled throughout life. In healthy human bone homeostasis, bone formation and resorption are in balance. In contrast, many bone diseases are caused by an imbalance in the interaction between bone cells, resulting in a significant change in the 3D morphology and functionality of bone. In an effort to stick to the 3Rs in animal experimentation (i.e. reduction, refinement and replacement), this project aims at implementing bone pathologies (for example osteoporosis). You will be part of the engaging Bioengineering Bone team and be familiarized with the use of our existing 3D in vitro co-culture model which is part of a larger project (NWO Vidi Project MiniBones). Within this project, you are expected to take the current healthy homeostatic state further to simulating bone diseases. This model will allow to simulate not only the interaction of the three main bone cells with each other, it will also take their native 3D environment into account (simulating bone morphology) and aims at providing a conceptual understanding of the bone disease and potential intervention targets.
Does a highly interdisciplinary research role within a world top 100 university excite you? Are you keen to make a world-leading impact by advancing the state-of-the-art in computational modelling? Then this post-doctoral research opportunity at the INSIGNEO Institute for in silico Medicine could be for you.
This research associate position is funded by the UK EPSRC as part of the project titled “A stochastic finite element modelling framework to predict effect sizes on bone mechanics in preclinical studies” (PI: Dr Pinaki Bhattacharya). The aim of this project is to develop efficient numerical methods to accurately predict the stochasticity in mouse bone mechanics.
More information:
https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/CJE447/research-associate-in-stochastic-finite-element-modelling
The ESB invites proposals for the organization of its annual congress in 2025. If you would like to host and organize the 2025 ESB congress and wish to prepare and submit a bid, please read the conference rules.
Interested members can contact or send a proposal/bid to Dr Enrico Dall’Ara, Chair of the Meetings and External Affairs Committee (e.dallara(at)sheffield.ac.uk),
The deadline for bid submission (first step) to organize the ESB 2025 is 15 December 2021.
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING
(BIOMATERIALS)
Department of Engineering Science
in association with St Catherine’s College
The Department of Engineering Science intends to appoint an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering (Biomaterials) with effect from 15th January 2022 or as soon as possible thereafter. The successful candidate will be based at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering (OX3 7DQ) and will be offered a (non-tutorial) Fellowship by Special Election at St Catherine’s College under arrangements described in the Job Description. The salary will be on a scale currently from £48,835 to £65,574 per annum plus additional benefits as indicated in the Job Description. The appointment will be initially for five years at which point, upon completion of a successful review, the post-holder will be eligible for reappointment to the retiring age.
This appointment will support the important and rapidly growing cross-disciplinary area of Biomaterials, strengthen the existing Drug Delivery, Immunostimulation and Neuromodulation efforts, and support the rapidly growing field of Antimicrobial research.
The successful candidate will conduct original research in the field of Biomaterials and will hold a doctorate in the general area of biomaterials, biomedical fluid mechanics, biomedical imaging or a cognate discipline. Candidates should have a proven research track record in the general field of Biomaterials, witnessed by peer reviewed publications and collaborations. They will contribute to research in biomedical engineering, supervise research students and research assistants, and obtain external funding to enable development of new and independent research. They will contribute to the teaching of core undergraduate courses in the Department of Engineering Science, which may include lectures, taught classes, practical laboratories, and the supervision of undergraduate design and project work.
A job description, containing full details of the application procedure and duties, may be obtained below or by clicking ‘apply’. The job ref is: DF21STC. Please quote this in all correspondence. The closing date for applications is 12:00 noon on Thursday 21 October 2021. Interviews will take place on Friday 10 December 2021.
For queries about the post that are not answered in the job description, please contact Professor Constantin Coussios, Director of the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at constantin.coussios@eng.ox.ac.uk.
Applications are particularly welcome from women and black and minority ethnic candidates, who are under-represented in academic posts in Oxford. The University is an Equal Opportunities Employer.
A PhD position is available within the Computational Mechanobiology Group at the Julius Wolff Institute (Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin). This position is funded through a research grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG) to investigate the mechanobiology of tissue regeneration following different spinal surgical interventions. The work will be carry out in the framework of a national consortium (DFG funded Research Unit) where clinicians, engineers, material scientists, mathematicians and biologists will be investigating the dynamics of the spine in healthy and pathological conditions and its relation to low back pain. Research goals will be addressed using computer modeling approaches coupled to in vivo and in vitro experimental data that will be provided by consortium partners.
The successful candidate will have a strong background in one or more of the following areas: mechanics, computational biology and/or computational mechanics. Strong programming and computer modelling skills are required. The position is available for three years.
The work will be conducted in a highly interdisciplinary research environment. As a PhD student, you will be associated to the Berlin-Brandenburg School of Regenerative Therapies (www.bsrt.de) and benefit from the interaction with international scientists.
Interested candidates should submit their application including two references by October 1st, 2021. Applications should be sent to: Prof. Sara Checa (sara.checa@charite.de)
Dear colleagues,
I am pleased to announce that, after a year on hiatus, we have decided to resume the annual meeting of the Spanish Chapter of the ESB, in the hope that we can do it normally, thus benefiting from all the advantages of being present.
The meeting will be held in Granada on October 25 and 26, 2021, as always, with the intention of encouraging the youngest with cheap registrations and rewarding the two best works. We invite you to send your abstracts by September 20. All the details are detailed on the congress website:
https://www.xcapitulo-esb-ugr.es
Contact: info@xcapitulo-esb-ugr.es or 958240037.
Waiting to meet again and share our work in person,
yours sincerely,
Guillermo Rus, on behalf of the organization committee.
On 22nd September 2021 at 17:00 EST we will have an ESB webinar on Python – Everything you need for your daily scientific programming work.
You can register here!
More information can be found here: https://esbiomech.org/student-section/esb-webinars/
Within the frame of NECESSARY project, we are looking for a candidate with a strong background in computational mechanics willing to join our multidisciplinary team for a two year period (1+1).
Activities and position:
• Carry out medical image processing, solid mechanics simulations of endovascular implants, and CFD/FSI analyses for
coronary/vascular biomechanics
• Full time position at the University of Pavia, with regular visits to San Donato Hospital (clinical partners of the project)
Profile:
• PhD in biomedical engineering/mechanical engineering, or applied mathematics
• Research experience and interest in the field of vascular biomechanics
• Proved experience in team working and project management
• C(++)/Python/MATLAB knowledge
• Knowledge of simulation software (e g Abaqus, ANSYS, open
source)
Send your CV with a cover letter to Prof. M. Conti (michele.conti@unipv.it)
