PhD on Computational growth and remodeling of cartilage microtissues

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Are you fascinated by scientific and technological innovations in mechano-driven cartilage tissue engineering? Are you driven to develop novel in silico frameworks that deepen mechanistic understanding of tissue growth and inform in vitro experiments? Then you might be our next PhD candidate! Information Functional and durable regeneration of articular cartilage is still an unsolved challenge, despite the growing clinical and socioeconomic burden. In recent years, developmentally inspired tissue engineering (TE) approaches, relying on the assembly of self-organizing microtissue-based building blocks into larger constructs, have emerged as promising avenues for cartilage regeneration. However, this typically results in a larger tissue with a disorganized matrix architecture, not resembling native cartilage. To unlock the full potential of microtissue-based TE, a deeper understanding is needed of how these microtissues remodel and fuse their matrices as they grow, and how this is governed by their mechanical microenvironment. As a PhD candidate, you will develop novel computational tools to elucidate these phenomena. This PhD project aims to develop a computational growth and remodeling (G&R) framework to investigate how cartilage microtissue growth dynamics, matrix composition, and (anisotropic) matrix architecture are influenced by the mechanical and geometric properties of their environment. These computational models can provide crucial mechanistic insights into the key parameters governing these processes, inform targeted in vitro experiments, and help design better biomaterials and TE strategies that harness mechanics and geometry. As a PhD candidate, you will adopt and extend in-house homogenized constrained-mixture (finite element) models for cardiovascular tissues towards simulating cartilage G&R (see Cyron et al., 2016 ). You will then simulate cartilage microtissues growing inside engineered, confining microenvironments and investigate the key parameters influencing the growth process, with a primary focus on anisotropic matrix organization. While this project is entirely computational in nature, you will collaborate closely with experimental researchers working with cartilage microtissues and engineered biomaterials, e.g. for tuning and validating the computational models, and for informing new in vitro experiments. As a PhD candidate, you will become an integral part of a dynamic and multidisciplinary environment of engineers, biologists, and clinicians across seniority levels, driving innovation in regenerative medicine. An educational and professional development program will be offered to you, and you will contribute to teaching activities and supervision of BSc and MSc students. You will be expected to present your PhD research at (inter-)national scientific conferences, publish in scientific journals, and complete a doctoral dissertation. Embedding This PhD project will be integrally based within two research groups of the Department of Biomedical Engineering: the Orthopaedic Biomechanics (OPB) group and the Modeling in Mechanobiology (MMB) group . You will be supervised by Dr. Sebastien Callens (co-promotor, OPB), Prof. Keita Ito (Promotor, OPB), and Dr. Sandra Loerakker (Promotor, MMB). The OPB group researches a wide range of topics related to tissue engineering, mechanobiology, and biomechanics of bone, articular cartilage, intervertebral disc, and tendons/ligaments. The group synergizes advanced in vitro , ex vivo , and in silico approaches to uncover new fundamental insights into the properties, growth, and degeneration of orthopaedic tissues, as well as to develop novel regenerative engineering strategies. The MMB group investigates the mechanobiology of native and engineered tissues, with a current focus on cardiovascular applications, using integrated computational and experimental methods. The group focuses on developing a deep understanding of how mechanical stimulation regulates growth and remodelin