Our long-term goal is to develop and use mechanics-based technology that can non-invasively detect soft tissue microdamage, disease, and dysfunction. Our research program has two tool-building pillars that work toward this larger goal: (1) optimization of full-field inverse methods for tissue characterization and (2) identification of constitutive models with appropriate mechano-biomarkers. The tools we develop will facilitate (3) novel, hypothesis-driven research on the interplay between tissue-scale mechanics and microscale structural alterations.
Projects
We are developing a full-field (i.e. image-based) experimental and computational modeling framework that addresses the limitations of traditional indentation-based characterization of soft, anisotropic materials.
This method will be used to identify pathology-specific mechano-biomarkers, based on microstructure-informed constitutive models of tissue mechanical behavior.
In particular, we are working to understand how the extracellular matrix evolves in (1) orthopedic fatigue, (2) endometrial dysfunction (infertility), and (3) cancer. We aim to model the tissue- and pathology-specific relationship between tissue microstructure and function.
Finally, we are developing a new, full-field elastography analysis framework that can identify these mechano-biomarkers in vivo, allowing us to “see” microscale markers of disease that MRI or ultrasound alone cannot.