Recently Completed Projects
Development of a 3D Model of the Dermal Niche (Project Lead by Lorenza Garau Paganella)
Human skin is a complex, multilayered organ that is subjected to several mechanical and biochemical stimuli, which can modulate cell activity and affect skin function and ... Read Project Details
Multiscale Characterization of Skin (Project Lead by Håvar Junker)
On the macro-scale (mm to cm), the mechanical properties of skin have been investigated using a wide range of techniques of fundamentally different working principles. A few examples are ... Read Project Details
Characterization and Modelling of Biomaterials for Applications in Biohybrid Robotics (Project Lead by Tuba Majid)
Biohybrid Robots represents an interdisciplinary field that merges the advantages of living systems with synthetic, engineered materials to create robots for personalized and responsive technology ... Read Project Details
The Effect of Hydrostatic Pressure on Endothelial Cells (Project Lead by Dunja Al-Nuaimi)
Endothelial cells (ECs) are specialized cells that line the inner wall of blood vessels. The vascular environment provides a unique set of stimuli to ECs, which impact fundamental biological processes such as ... Read Project Details
Fracture Behavior of Elastomers and Soft Collagenous Tissues (Project Lead by Eleni Kahle)
Assessing the fracture behavior of soft collagenous tissues (SCTs), such as the fetal membrane or the liver capsule, is highly relevant for numerous clinical applications ... Read Project Details
The Effect of Environmental Conditions on the Biomechanical Properties of Soft Collagenous Tissues (Project Lead by Serjosha Robmann)
Soft collagenous tissues (SCT) as the fetal membrane (FM) or the liver capsule (GC) serve vital functions and undergo large deformations during their lifespan. Failure of these can result in perilous situations ... Read Project Details
The Role of Chemomechanical Coupling in Skin and its Clinical Implications (Project Lead by Anastasiya Martyts)
Internal and external mechanical forces naturally occur in skin on various magnitudes and time scales. It is known that such forces can actively affect skin mechanics, biology, and wound healing ... Read Project Details
Endothelial Monolayer Response to Stretch and the Role of Senescence (Project Lead by Young Choi)
The endothelium—a single-cell thick, continuous layer of endothelial cells—covers the internal surfaces of all our blood and lymph vessels ... Read Project Details
Skin Multilayer Mechanobiology (Project Lead by David Sachs)
Skin is a complex structure composed of several distinct layers. In general, as depicted in figure 1, the three main layers accounted for are epidermis, dermis and hypodermis ... Read Project Details
Micro Topography Patterning of General Elastomer Surfaces for the Endothelialization of Ventricular Assist Devices (Project Lead by Xi Wu)
Synthetic substrate with a monolayer of endothelial cells (EC) could form the basis of a 100% haemocompatible blood pump. However, cells could experience supra-physiological wall shear stress (WSS) in artificial blood pumps such as ... Read Project Details
In-vivo Mechanical Characterization of Skin (Project Lead by Dr. Bettina Thumm)
The skin is the largest and most functionally complex organ in our body. It serves as a barrier protecting us from external influences ... Read Project Details
Phase Separation-Induced Microstructures (Project Lead by Dr. Alberto Stracuzzi)
Phase separation is a physical process that occurs when a mixed, homogeneous mixture of substances separates in different phases ... Read Project Details
Constitutive Modelling of Fibre Networks with Stretch Distributions
Network-like structures of randomly arranged and connected fibres are prevalent in a variety of natural as well as technical materials. To understand, analyse and predict the behaviour ... Read Project Details
Multiscale Mechanics of Skin and Skin-Equivalent Materials
The mechanical properties of the human skin are essential for its primary function as a protective barrier against external insults. These properties derive from the microstructure ... Read Project Details
Role of Cellular Senescence in Endothelial Dysfunction
Cellular senescence is a biological process characterized by irreversible proliferative arrest, resistance to apoptosis, presence of senescence-associated secretory phenotype ... Read Project Details
Response of Senescent Endothelial Monolayers to Multiple Mechanical Stimuli
Blood vessels are lined by endothelial cells (ECs) which constantly interact with the luminal and abluminal extracellular environments [1]. Because of their particular location at the interface ... Read Project Details
Multiphasic Phenomena in Soft Biological Membranes
This research focuses on the multiphasic behaviour of biological membranes ... Read Project Details
In-Vivo Biomechanical Analysis for Skin Diagnosis
The SKINTEGRITY project aims at the development of more efficient diagnoses and therapies of skin diseases and acute and chronic wounds ... Read Project Details
Multiscale modeling of musculo-skeletal tissues from virtually reconstructed 3D detailed FE based models
Muscle and tendon tissues are multi-scale materials with fibre bundles embedded in layers of a collagenous scaffolding network, namely extra-cellular matrix (ECM) ... Read Project Details
Nonlinear Analysis of Helical Structures
Current research seeks to develop fundamental models of helical structures that can be used to understand the basis of their mechanical function in collagen tissues ... Read Project Details
Traction-Force Microscopy Analysis of the Cell-ECM Interaction during Cyclic Mechanical Loading
This project focuses on the mechanical interaction of endothelial cells with their substrate under cyclic loading conditions ... Read Project Details
Mechanical Interactions in Fibrous Networks
Unravel the complex relationship between fibre scale and macroscopic properties with a particular focus on the interaction between fibres by friction, compaction and the formation of cross-links ... Read Project Details
Comparative Biomechanics
The objective is to gain insight in the influence of the microstructure on the macroscopically observed nonlinear behavior as well as on the functionality of these tissues ... Read Project Details
Skin Multiscale Mechanics
This research focuses on the contribution of the skin microstructure to the global characteristics of the tissue ... Read Project Details
Tissue Scaffolds for Intervertebral Disc Repair
Electrospinning is well suited for the manufacturing of tissue engineered scaffolds, due to its capability to create planar polymer fiber networks with widely tunable topology and properties ... Read Project Details
Hyperelastic hybrid membrane for biomimetic blood propulsion
Over 26 million people worldwide are affected by heart failure, 6.5 million in Europe. Currently heart transplantation is the only long term solution for this disease ... Read Project Details
Stent Induced Loading of the Aortic Valve Complex
The aim of this project is to develop a procedure that allows the reconstruction of the force fields acting between implant and surrounding tissue ... Read Project Details
Finite Element Modeling of the Face
Understanding of the mechanics of soft biological tissue allows simulating and predicting the mechanical response of complex tissue structures and organs. This provides new opportunities ... Read Project Details
Microstructural Model of Fetal Membranes
The mechanical response of fetal membranes shows particular features related to their function: very compliant response in uniaxial stress state, large biaxial stiffness, large transversal contraction ... Read Project Details
3D Finite Element Pelvic Floor Modeling
Pelvic floor dysfunctions affect a wide range of women of all age groups, more than 10% of which require surgery. However the mechanisms resulting in such pathologies are still poorly understood ... Read Project Details