Biomechanics and Mechanobiology of Bone

Luis Cardoso is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the City College of New York (CCNY). He is a former postdoctoral fellow of the Bone Loss team at the NASA – National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) and currently director of the multiscale and functional imaging laboratory at CCNY. A major interest of Dr. Cardoso's research focuses on biomechanics of the musculoskeletal system using experimental, analytical and numerical approaches to investigate the structure function relationship of calcified tissues. Dr. Cardoso's laboratory has particular interest on ultrasound wave propagation in porous media, imaging of bone microarchitecture, and the characterization of bone mechanical competence using the Fabric Tensor. Dr. Cardoso is the author of 80 peer reviewed papers in international journals, more than 130 peer reviewed abstracts, and 4 book chapters. He has been an invited lecturer at several international venues, including the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Biomedical Engineering Symposium. He has received several distinctions, including the New Investigator Recognition Award by the Orthopaedic Research Society in USA, and was elected as Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).

Jean-François Ganghoffer was a CNRS fellow from 1992 to 2000, before being hired as full Professor of mechanics in Université de Lorraine (Nancy, France), where he is currently active. He is the head of the biomechanics team of LEM3, the Laboratoire d’Etude des Microstructures et de Mécanique des Matériaux. He is the leader of a national Federation of Laboratories (IMOA, Ingénierie Mécanobiologie ostéoarticulaire, FR CNRS 2003) in the field of osteoarticular mechanobiology. He has been the Director of a GDR research group on fibrous media. His activities cover bone biomechanics, homogenization methods, mechanics of fibrous media, the multiphysical behavior of architected materials, and topology optimization methods. He has developed different types of bone remodeling models over the past decade, and he has been more recently considering piezoelectric and flexoelectric effects in bone. He is the author of about 300 scientific papers in international journals. He has been invited to many conferences and universities for both research and teaching activities (ETHZ, Georgia Tech Metz, TU Delft, TU Eindhoven, UBC, Vancouver). He is collaborating with many universities worldwide (Brazil, Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Poland, Canada, US), and he has been invited to deliver lectures at many international conferences. He has published two books, including the monograph ‘Multiscale Biomechanics’ in Wiley in 2018. He is the frequent reviewer for over twenty international journals. He received several distinctions, including the Beltrami Prize in 2017, the Grand Prix de la Société Industrielle de l’Es in 2005, and the scientific award of excellence by the French Ministry of Research more than 10 years.

Mitchell B. Schaffler is a Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Director of the Bone and Joint Laboratory at the City College of New York (CCNY). Dr. Schaffler’s research aims to understand how skeletal tissues (bone, ligament, tendon, cartilage) develop, maintain and repair themselves in order to meet mechanical demands throughout life. In particular, he focuses on the cellular and integrative processes that control the architectural features of bone and tendon, and governs how they responds to physical challenges normally and in aging and in diseases such as osteoporosis, genetic defects and diabetes. He has a longstanding research focus on fatigue and repair in bone and tendon, with specific emphasis on discovering how living cells in these tissues detect and repair wear and tear damage before it accumulates to the point of mechanical failure. Dr. Schaffler’s laboratory also examines how osteocytes (the tissue-resident bone cells) influences mechanical function, both directly by modulating local matrix composition, and indirectly by controlling local bone remodeling activities. In related studies, Dr. Schaffler’s laboratory also examines how osteocytes function as mechanical sensors that allow bone to perceive and react to mechanical loading. Experimental approaches used in the Bone and Joint Laboratory focus on the cell and tissue levels, and include in vivo and tissue mechanical loading studies, mechanical and biomaterials testing, microscopy, microcomputed tomography, in vivo microscopy and super-resolution microscopy, cell culture and molecular biology. Dr. Schaffler has more than 150 peer reviewed manuscripts published in international journals, 300 peer reviewed transactions, and has been elected fellow at prestigious societies, including the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, American Society for Bone and Mineral Research, and the American Association of Anatomists. He received the AcroMed Award for Outstanding Research, North American Spine Society, and has been Editorial Board member of the Journal of Orthopaedic Research, BONE and Anatomical Record journal.