Final Day of the Soft Tissue Modelling Workshop was held on  Friday 7th June; the SofTMech Workshop Committee would like to thank all the delgates for coming to take part in the workshop. An A-Z of the workshop can be viewed via the link on the right. Due to COVID-19 the 5th workshop will be postponed for 1 year and be held in June 2021 The final day featured two more invited talks and the presentation of prizes for PhD students' oral and poster contributions.  During the three days the delegates heard talks from six invited speakers who are profiled here

Gerhard A. Holzapfel is Professor of Biomechanics and Head of the Institute of Biomechanics at Graz University of Technology (TUG), Austria, since 2007. He is also Adjunct Professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway and Visiting Professor at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. Until 2013 he was Professor of Biomechanics at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden, for 9 years (7 years as an Adjunct Professor). After his PhD in Mechanical Engineering in Graz he received an Erwin-Schrödinger Scholarship for foreign countries to be a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University (1993-95). He achieved his Habilitation at TU Vienna in 1996 and received a START-Award in 1997, which is the most prestigious research award in Austria for young scientists.

Among several awards and honors in the past years he is listed in “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds: 2014” (Thomas Reuters) and he received the Erwin Schrödinger Prize 2011 from the Austrian Academy of Sciences for his lifetime achievements. Professor Holzapfel’s research includes experimental and computational biomechanics and mechanobiology with an emphasis on soft biological tissues, the cardiovascular system including blood vessels in health and disease, therapeutic interventions such as balloon angioplasty and stent implantation, polarized light and second-hormonic imaging microscopy, magnetic resonance imaging and medical image processing; nonlinear continuum mechanics, constitutive (multi-scale) modeling of solids at finite strains such as cross-linked actin networks, growth and remodeling, nonlinear finite element methods, fracture and material failure.

Professor Holzapfel has authored a graduate textbook entitled “Nonlinear Solid Mechanics. A Continuum Approach for Engineering” (John Wiley & Sons), and co-edited seven books. He contributed chapters to 20+ other books, and published 190+ peer-reviewed journal articles. He is the co-founder and co-editor of the International Journal “Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology” (Springer). His h-index is 75 (according to Google Scholar).

At the conference Gerhard presented the final invited talk on day 3, Friday 7th June entitled  

"BIOMECHANICS OF FIBROUS SOFT TISSUES: STATE-OF-THE-ART AND CHALLENGES AHEAD"

Alain Goriely

Shortly after receiving his Ph.D in mathematical physics from the University of Brussels in 1994, Alain Goriely joined the Department of Mathematics at the University of Arizona where he established a research group within the renowned Program of Applied Mathematics. He joined the University of Oxford as the Chair of Mathematical Modelling in 2010. Currently, he is the director of the Oxford Centre for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and of the International Brain mechanics and Trauma Lab. At the scientific level, he is an applied mathematician with broad interests in mathematics, science, and engineering. His research in mathematical methods, nonlinear dynamics, and theoretical mechanics has led him to collaborate closely with scientists from many other disciplines such as engineering, biology, medical sciences, chemistry, and physics.  His current research includes the mechanics of biological growth and its applications to plants and physiology; the multiscale modelling of the brain,  the design of photovoltaic devices, the mathematical foundations of elasticity; the dynamics of curves, knots, and rods; the design of proteins; the modelling of cancer; and the development of mathematical methods for applied sciences.  He is the author of Integrability and Nonintegrability (2011), The mathematics and mechanics of biological Growth (2017), and of Applied Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction (2018).

At the Workshop Alain will presented his talk entitled

“  MODELLING BRAIN AGEING AND DEMENTIA" on day 1, Wednesday 5th June  

Gerard A. Ateshian is the Andrew Walz Professor of Mechanical Engineering (ME) at Columbia University. His primary research is in the field of soft tissue mechanics, with an emphasis on cartilage mechanics, lubrication, and tissue engineering, the formulation of growth theories for biological tissues, and the development of treatment modalities for osteoarthritis. In collaboration with Prof. Clark Hung from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia, he has translated his findings on cartilage mechanics to the field of functional cartilage tissue engineering.  Together with Prof. Jeffrey Weiss at the University of Utah, he has developed open-source computational tools that facilitate the modeling of tissue mechanics, transport, and growth processes (febio.org).  In collaboration with Dr. Melvin Rosenwasser in Columbia’s Department of Orthopaedic Surgery (DOS), he has developed a technology for bending osteochondral allografts to conform their anatomy to that of the transplantation site, leading to a novel treatment of thumb osteoarthritis.  In collaboration with Prof. Sinisa Vukelic in ME and Dr. Roshan Shah in DOS, he is currently developing a laser treatment modality for crosslinking osteoarthritic cartilage, for the purpose of strengthening this tissue in early stages of this degenerative joint disease.

At the Workshop Gerard presented the first invited talk entitled

" MODELLING FATIQUE IN SOFT BIOLOGICAL TISSUES USING REACTIVE CONSTRAINED MIXTURES" 

 

Alfio Quarteroni pursued his studies in mathematics at University of Pavia and at University of Paris VI. Since then he has held positions as a professor at Catholic University of Brescia, a professor in mathematics at University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and director of the Chair of Modeling and Scientific Computing at EPFL from 1998 until the end of 2017. He is the founder (and first director) of MOX at Politecnico of Milan and of MATHICSE at EPFL, Lausanne. He has authored 25 books and more than 300 papers. He is member of the Italian Academy of Sciences, of the European Academy of Sciences, of the Academia Europaea

At the workshop Alfio presented his talk entitled

" NUMERICAL MODELS OF THE CARDIOCIRCULATORY SYSTEM"

 on day 2, Thursday 6th June.

Prof. Paul steinmann - FAU/University OF GLASGOW

Prof. Paul Steinmann has graduated with distinction from Universität Hannover as Civil Engineer in 1988. Afterwards he was a research assistant at the Institute for Mechanics at Universität Karlsruhe, where he finished his PhD on “Localization Phenomena in Plastomechanics” with distinction in 1992. “Habilitation” and Venia Legendi in Mechanics for “Modelling and Simulation of Ductile Crystalline Materials” followed at Universität Hannover (completed 1996). Prof. Steinmann is a Full Professor and head of the Institute of Applied Mechanics at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at FAU, where he served as spokesperson of the Department (2009-2011). Prof. Steinmann was appointed the same position at Universität Kaiserslautern (1997-2007), where he served as (Vice)-Dean (2001-2006). Since 2017 Prof. Steinmann is also Professor of Computational Engineering Science and Director of the Glasgow Computational Engineering Centre (GCEC) at the University of Glasgow. Prof. Steinmann's research interests are mainly in the areas of geometrically non-linear continuum mechanics and continuum physics with a strong focus on computational engineering. Prof. Steinmann's research activities as a result cover the broad field from material modelling, multi-scale methods, configurational/failure/fracture mechanics, non-standard continua, multi-physics problems to general developments in finite element and discretisation methods.

At the workshop Paul presented his talk entititled 

"TESTING OF NATIVE AND BIOFABRICATED SOFT BIOTISSUE MATERIALS"

on day 2, Thursday 6th June 

Professor Rajagopal is a Distinguished Professor, Regents Professor, and holds the Forsyth Chair in Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University. He holds joint appointments in the Departments of Mathematics, Biomedical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Ocean Engineering and Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution. He is a Fellow of the Michael E. DeBakey Institute, and a Research Scientist at the Texas Transportation Institute. He has made contributions to various aspects of mechanics and thermodynamics, as well as in the areas of biomedicine, traffic flow modeling, control, and resource allocation problems. He has won several awards and honors, including the Eringen Medal, The Memorial Medal, The Archie Higdon Award (from the American Society of Engineering Education), Zable Medal, Bush Excellence Award, the President’s award from the Tokyo Institute of Science and Technology, the President’s award for distinguished visitors from Ben Gurion University, University of Auckland Foundation Distinguished Visitor Award. He has received honoris causa from the University of Perugia, University of Pretoria, Charles University, and Technical University “Gheorghe Asachi”. He is a highly cited researcher according to ISI Citations classification and is in the top 3% of researchers in his field according to Analytical Academics. Rajagopal is a Distinguished Professor at the IIT, Madras, an Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria, Honorary Professor at Charles University and the University of Witwatersrand. Professor Rajagopal has served as the President of the Society for Natural Philosophy. He has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (India), and the Hall of Fame of Science and Technology of the Technological Institute. He has authored/co-authored six books, published over five hundred and fifty papers in archival journals, and given over 350 plenary lectures, keynote lectures, and seminars

At the workshop Raj presented his talk on the final day  entitled

"ON MODELLING THE GROWTH OF SOFT TISSUES"

 

 

First published: 28 May 2019

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