ECU Engineering seminar series: Dr. Glen Niebur

ECU Engineering seminar series cordially invites you to the third seminar of the spring 2021 semester.

Professor Glen Niebur, from the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, University of Notre Dame, presents his research on Bone and Implant Mechanics.

Please plan to join his talk via Webex on Friday, 19^th of March 2021 from 3:00 pm-4:00 pm.

Meeting Information:

Meeting link: https://ecu.webex.com/ecu/j.php?MTID=m47a351fd4cf1e95569b3b1a4fef96208

Meeting number: 120 560 4883

Password: An73HVhsMt9 (26734847 from phones)

Numerical and Experimental assessment of Mechanobiological Factors in Osseointegration

This talk will discuss both computational and experimental research to characterize osseointegration of orthopaedic devices.

Uncemented implants are used in over 80% of total hip arthroplasties in the US. The majority of these devices are fixed to the surrounding bone by osseointegration – a process in which bone grows into pores on the implant surface. Improved understanding of this process could improve the design and performance of joint replacement systems, as failure of the interface is the primary reason for revision in arthroplasties. The primary function of osseointegration surfaces is mechanical, and it is essential to understand the physiology in the context of the relevant mechanics. In this talk, I will present discuss our recent studies of osseointegration and methods for designing and assessing porous scaffolds. We have implemented a mechanobiological tissue differentiation algorithm in finite element models of additively manufactured scaffolds to explore factors that affect osseointegration. We have explored the effects of both normal and tangential motion and gaps between the bone and osseointegration surface. Complementary experiments in using bioreactor culture provide a means to further explore and validate these models using controlled loading conditions.

Glen Niebur is a professor of mechanical engineering and the director of bioengineering programs at the University of Notre Dame, where he has been a member of the faculty since 2000. He earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of Minnesota. He worked as an engineering technician in the Mayo Clinic Biomechanics laboratory in Rochester, MN before joining the Orthopaedic Biomechanics Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley, where he earned his Ph.D. degree from in 2000.