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== MRes/PhD Opportunities for October 2017 == | == MRes/PhD Opportunities for October 2017 == |
Revision as of 06:46, 26 October 2016
MRes/PhD Opportunities for October 2017Opportunities are available in the Developmental Biomechanics group for enthusiastic MRes and PhD students. The research focus of the group is the importance of fetal movements for skeletal development. When a baby doesn’t move enough in the womb, their bones and joints may not form normally, and our research aims to find out why and how this can occur. Both experimental and computational projects are available, and researchers from either a biology (e.g., developmental biology, physiology, genetics) or engineering background are welcome- we are an interdisciplinary group!
Research from our group has shown that mechanical stimulation due to fetal movements (in vivo) or due to applied mechanical forces (in vitro) leads to measurable changes in growth and shape effects in the developing skeleton. This project will use a bioreactor system to culture developing chick and mouse limb explants in order to quantify the relationship between movements and developmental change, and to explore the cell and organelle level changes leading to the observed changes. The work will be highly relevant to tissue engineering of cartilage and bone, as we will be aiming to use mechanical forces to more closely recapitulate developmental processes leading to functional skeletal tissues. This project would be suitable for candidates from either biology or engineering backgrounds.
Fetal movements are an important indicator of a developing baby’s health and particularly of brain development. However, fetal movements are not commonly assessed clinically and no automated tracking or analyses of movements are performed. Ongoing research in our group has developed algorithms to track fetal leg movements, and pilot data indicates that aspects of fetal movements may correlate with healthy or unhealthy brain development. This project will build upon previous projects to develop enhanced automated tracking methods for fetal movements from fetal cine MRI data, and correlate the movements with normal and abnormal brain development. This project offers a valuable opportunity to work on a highly interdisciplinary project, with close collaboration with clinicians. The project would be suitable for candidates with a bioengineering, biophysics or computer science background, with prior knowledge or experience of image processing being a particular advantage. This project will be joint supervised by Dr Niamh Nowlan and Dr Bernhard Kainz (Department of Computing) |