Working Group: Musculoskeletal Spine Modelling
Coordinators
Luigi La Barbera (Politecnico di Milano, Italy; lead)
Tito Bassani (IRCCS Galeazzi-Sant’Ambrogio Hospital, Italy)
Marwan El Rich (Khalifa University Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates)
Dominika Ignasiak (ETH Zürich, Switzerland)
Contact: luigi.labarbera@polimi.it
Update July 2026
Actions taken
The coordinators held an official ESB Webinar to introduce and motivate the need for the ESB MSM-WG, setting objectives and presenting the planned activities. The records of the Webinars are available here for anyone to view: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt7zbEIoxzI.
A Public Survey on “Musculoskeletal Spine Modelling: Practices, Assumptions & Challenges” is officially open for completion until the end of September 2026. The Survey aims at capturing the current practices, methodologies, challenges, and emerging trends on MSM construction, validation, and application in biomechanical and clinical settings. It is structured in two parts:
- Section A (about 5′ to complete) covers general questions addressed to any model user, including non-experts and clinicians.
- Sections B-L (about 30′ to complete) covers detailed questions addressed to expert modellers and advanced model users.
The coordinators invite anyone interested to complete the survey using this link:
https://forms.gle/qHAT4M8DDpgGQDf98.
Any question about the survey can be addressed to the lead coordinator. The Invitation is also being shared on social media and by emails also thanks to partner societies. Anyone interested, including fellow clinicians and surgeons from partners societies are more than welcome to complete the Survey!
We are looking forward to hearing your voice!
Next steps
Preliminary results about the Survey (postprocessed anonymously and in aggregate), will be presented during a second ESB Webinar expected in Fall 2026.
We are organising a Special Issue on Musculoskeletal Spine Modelling to be launched in Fall 2026 to collect scientific contributions on the topic. We are interacting with various Journal Editors to identify the most convenient venue for the special issue. More details will follow soon on this webpage!
We are working to have a dedicated in person event in 2027 either as a dedicated Special Session during the ESB annual meeting in Berlin in 2027 and/or as an independent Workshop. Please, check this webpage for any official update about the ESB MSM-WG!
Update February 2026
Actions taken
The WG Coordinators regularly met online over the past months (Oct. 22nd, Oct. 27th, Nov.10th, Nov. 24th, Dec. 9th in 2025, and Jan. 8th in 2026). ESB Council members (Sandra Loerakker, ESB Webportal and Working Groups Committee and Enrico Dall’Ara, ESB President) also joined the discussion twice (Oct.10th in 2025 just after MSM-WG launch, Feb.13th in 2026 as a 6-months update to ESB Council).
Since its launch, the MSM-WG has attracted the attention of many interested ESB members. The MSM-WG drafted a Participants’ List including about 30 ESB members + 220 researchers, engineers, models’ developers, end-users, clinicians to be reached with MSM-WG actions).
The WG is preparing a Public Survey (main activity planned in 1st year, Oct.2025-Sep.2026) aimed at capturing the current practices, methodologies, challenges, and emerging trends on MSM construction, validation, and application in biomechanical and clinical settings. Besides the name collected in the Participants’ List, the recipients of the Survey will include the ESB community, but also the MSM community worldwide and data will be collected and processed anonymously.
Next steps
The Public Survey draft is now circulating among expert colleagues for improvements and feedback regarding clarity and content. The MSM-WG plans to finalize the Survey Draft and to launch it in Spring (March/April 2026) and to close by the end of Summer (June/July 2026). The initiative will be officially launched with an ESB Webinar and results will be openly published and disseminated with a dedicated ESB Webinar.
