We are pleased to announce that our next seminar is being hosted jointly with the IMSB Biomechanics and Mechanobiology of MSK group.  Dr Marlène Mengoni, Associate Professor in Computational Medical Engineering, from the University of Leeds will give a talk on 'Including variability in joint models for preclinical testing of interventions' on Friday 10 November. 

Dr Marlène Mengoni

I am an associate professor at the University of Leeds. My work is centred on method development for preclinical testing of early-stage musculoskeletal interventions, with a focus on spinal interventions but also work in the knee and ankle joints. I use combined in vitro and in silico models to understand sources of variation in joint biomechanics in a preclinical testing environment and how it is affected by interventions.

In the seminar, I will present an overview of my work, with emphasis on the overarching methodology and the benefits it provides in particular for assessing variability in biomechanics. I will use an example of preclinical testing for “nucleus augmentation” (use of minimally invasive injectable materials aimed at restoring spinal mechanics) and demonstrate how I have used the same methods for assessing variability in knee biomechanics.

I will also cover a case study of how the method has been used to model patient variation in ankle biomechanics in people with haemophilia. I will show how the initial patient-specific work demonstrated the need to understand more how the disease mechanisms are related to changes in bone quality (current RAEng Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship).

I will finish with an overview of current work on facet joints (EPSRC NIA) and of future work in expanding the methods to understand intervention-related damage mechanisms (EPSRC Open Fellowship).