Author: Rosa Armitage

 

Today Centre Director Prof Yuantong Gu, Deputy Director Prof Peter Pivonka, Program lead A/Prof Saulo Martelli, CAO Rosalee Armitage and the team had the opportunity to revisit the Stryker R&D lab and tour the Herston Biofabrication Institute at the Metro North Health precinct.

Thank-you to Enabling Technology Manager Jenna Lyon, Robotics manager Tom Williamson, Digital Health Manager Mark Luhovy, MD and Research and Development Manager Julia Hocking for welcoming the team.

As one of our key collaborators, Stryker has several overlapping research areas in medical imaging diagnosis, modelling for pre and perioperative planning, and robotic-assisted surgery with the centre. As our collaboration grows, we are interested to see how we can lend our local expertise to the innovative, start-up-like culture at Stryker and to branch out to other clinically informed projects in #advancedmanufacturing and #digitalhealth.

 

Next we were welcomed to the Herston Biofabrication Institute to visit General Manager Mathilde Desselle, affiliate researchers Nicholas Green and Dr Deniz U. Erbulut who co-supervise several centre PhD students and whom are currently collaborating on an inlay/onlay project as driven by our clinical lead Adj. Prof Ashish Gupta. HBI are well known for their medical implant development and the team were fascinated to see their delivery of personalised #patientcare in the form of 3D printed implants used for a variety of medical conditions from renal, cardiology and #orthopaedics.

As an Australian Research Council Training Centre, we highly value clinically lead projects and student placement training opportunities as we tackle real-world problems. The students gained insights into what it takes to collaborate with clinical leads onsite and about employment practices for their future success.

Thank-you everyone who came along, looking forward to exciting projects in 2023!

PhD and PD team: François Bruyer-Montéléone, Ahmed Sewify, Natali Uribe, Sepideh Shemshad, Asawari P., Yuyao (Amy) Ma, Morgan Windsor, Dr Dermot O’Rourke, xiaolong fan, Hamid Reza Jarrah, Alexander Lee-Medland, & Andrea Sgarzi

     

On the 17th of January 2023, the ARC ITTC for Joint Biomechanics welcomed Harvard trained orthopaedic surgeon and shoulder sub-specialist A/Prof Ruth Delaney to QUT’s stunning Garden’s Point Campus to present a seminar alongside our Queensland Unit for Advanced Shoulder Research (QUASR) affiliate Dr Mohammad Jomaa and  centre Postdoctoral fellow Dr Laith Alzubaidi.

A/Prof Delaney attended medical school in her hometown of Cork, Ireland and then moved to Boston for residency training at Harvard, where she did her shoulder fellowship with JP Warner. During her fellowship, she spent time in France working with Laurent Lafosse and Gilles Walch. She won the Neer Award in 2014 and continues to be academically active, publishing and speaking internationally. She currently practices in Dublin, Ireland and is an Associate Professor at University College Dublin.

Her practice focuses exclusively on the shoulder. She founded the Irish Shoulder Fellowship program & the Dublin Shoulder Institute. She is a SECEC committee member, has served as an Associate Editor for JSES Seminars in Arthroplasty and currently serves as Deputy Editor Shoulder & Elbow Research for JAAOS. She was co-president of the SECEC 2022 congress in Dublin in September 2022. She is a keen sportswoman, having represented her province, Munster, in four different sports and played tennis at international level. This has led to her offering consultation services to many high level players and events during her career.

A/Prof Delaney and centre clinical lead Adj. Prof Ashish Gupta was welcomed by Centre Director A/Prof YT Gu, Centre Deputy Director Prof Peter Pivonka, and Centre Administration Officer Ms Rosa Armitage at the Science and Engineering Centre above which the ITTC for Joint Biomechanics sit as the central node.

Greeted by the centre Cube display, A/Prof Delaney and the team obtained their required coffees and began a centre tour. Commencing at P Block, centre students and post-docs had the opportunity to share their work on deep learning, loss functions for 3D finite element models of shoulder and bones, reconstructions of shoulder and load parameters, to assessments of bone loss, range of motion and bone quality as developed by the team.

Viewing the 3D Printing and load testing labs in O Block, QUT Campus

A/Prof Delaney was then taken to the School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering to meet Head of School Prof YT Gu in his office and to take a tour of the lab facilities by PhD student Mr Xiaolong Fan. Xiaolong showed us the 3D printing labs where bony models are reconstructed based on models as well as the equipment used to load and test forces on samples and specimens.

PhD student Mr Morgan Windsor and A/Prof Saulo Martelli then took the group to S block where our robotics team sit where Morgan showed the group the robots and programs used to develop a system for automatic registration and tracking of the scapular in real time and to autonomously develop a glenoid guidewire based on the scapula tracking system. 

A/Prof Delaney presenting her seminar ‘Bony Reconstruction Options in Shoulder Instability.’

A/Prof Delaney’s seminar in the heritage listed H Block of QUT highlighted her many career highlights focusing on her work on the shoulder mainly for collusion-based injuries of rugby players back at the Dublin Shoulder Institute and Sports Surgery Clinic. It was an insightful presentation for the team to see her career journey and persistence to succeed in a male dominated field and to discuss the evidence behind different surgical approaches for different cases based on bone loss and quality.

Dr Jomaa presenting his work on assessing the reparability of rotator cuff tears – is healing the same as reparability? 

Dr Jomaa then provided his interesting findings regarding the reparability of rotator cuff tears, followed by Dr Alzubaidi’s highlight of his research into using ‘AI for assessing reparability of the Rotator Cuff for large to massive Cuff tears’  as part of the grant he won with A/Prof Delaney, Adj. Prof Ashish Gupta, and Dr Freek Hollmann at the SECEC-ESSEE congress in 2022.

The QUASR and ITTC-JB team at Tippler’s Tap, Southbank

The event was followed by a networking opportunity for the team over drinks at Southbank, where the team gained further insight into her career trajectory and advice for their own careers and research projects. The level of clinical input into the student’s projects and widening impact of the research work the centre as we build an international network of similarly passionately minded individuals was echoed by A/Prof Delaney, who we were proud to show our growth to over the last few years as a research centre.

Thank-you A/Prof Delaney for your engaging talk and for making it all the way to Brisbane from Dublin, Ireland. We wish you all the best for your consultations during the 2023 Australian Open tennis season.

The strategic goals of the ITTC-JB are to train and develop future leaders, advance the field of digitally informed joint biomechanics and personalised orthopaedic treatment, and to facilitate the translation of knowledge and technologies through meaningful collaboration. To contribute to these three goals, a Seed Grant scheme was proposed back in July 2022 to empower the future workforce of our Centre (PhD students and Post-doctoral Fellows) to independently develop a project proposal, communicate their idea, and carry out a project.    

With a total of 15,000 AUD on offer to launch a key research project that would harness the strengths of each of our 4 program streams (Computational methods to assess shoulder function – Program 1, robot assisted testing and surgery – Program 2, Optimised tissue-engineered scaffolds, with a focus on bioengineered scaffolds to assist in the repair of rotator cuff tears – Program 3, and In vivo assessment of upper limb movements, physiology and rehabilitation – Program 4), the teams developed their project ideas, team membership, grant application writing skills and pitching skills across a series of 4 workshops. 

On November 25th 2022 at the ARC Training Centre for Joint Biomechanics’ Annual Research Symposium, four teams pitched their grant submissions to our esteemed panel of judges Mr. Massoud Shahi (Zimmer Biomet), Prof. Yi-Chin Toh (QUT (Queensland University of Technology) University of Technology), Prof. Kevin Tetsworth (MQ Health), and Prof. Peter Pivonka (QUT (Queensland University of Technology) in a short but concise 5 minutes.  

After much deliberation, we are proud to award 2 successful applications:

‘Biomechanical characteristics of the human supraspinatus tendon in vivo under physiological loading.’

Lead investigators: Dr. Bart Bolsterlee, Dr. Eleonore Bolle, and Dr. Wolbert van den Hoorn; with co-investigators Dr Freek Hollman, Miss Yilan (Olivia) Zhang, Miss Asawari P., and Miss Sepideh Shemshad. Industry mentors: Prof. Lynne Bilston (University of New South Wales) and Adj. Prof. Ken Cutbush (Ken Cutbush Clinic – Brisbane Private Hospital).

‘Toward precision tracking of the shoulder joint using ultrasound tomography.’

Lead investigator: Dr Dermot O’Rourke; with Mr Arun Jolly, Mr Ahmed Sewify, Miss Natali Uribe, Dr Roberto Pareyon, Mr Maxence Lavaill, and Mr xiaolong fan. Academic mentor: A/Prof Saulo Martelli.

We want to thank our unsuccessful teams with the following submissions: 

‘Explainable Deep Learning approach for shoulder abnormalities detection.’ 

Lead Investigator: Dr Laith Alzubaidi; with co-investigators Mr. Jinshuai Bai, Dr. Asma Salhi, and Dr. Freek Hollman. Industry mentors: Prof. Yuantong Gu (QUT), Adj. Prof. Ashish Gupta (QUASR, Greenslopes Private Hospital, Akunah), and external collaborator Prof. Amin Abbosh (University of Queensland).  

‘Non-invasive assessment of rotator cuff function’ 

Lead Investigator: Dr. Wolly van den Hoorn; co-investigators: Dr. Eleonore Bolle, Dr. Roberto Pareyon, Mr. Francois Bruyer-Monteleone, and Miss Yuyao (Amy) Ma. Industry mentors: Prof. Francois Hug from the Université Côte D’Azur, A/Prof Kylie Tucker (University of Queensland), and Adj. Prof Ashish Gupta (QUASR, Greenslopes Private Hospital, Akunah).  

 We wish the winners all the best for their multi-disciplinary projects, with further developments to come. 

On Friday 25th of November, the ARC Training Centre for Joint Biomechanics showcased their biomedical research and commitment to personalised patient care in their annual research symposium.

Held at the home of the IITC, the Queensland University of Technology’s Science and Engineering Centre, P Block at Garden’s Point campus our researchers students, industry (Stryker, Zimmer Biomet, Logemas, Australian Biotechnologies, ), clinical (Greenslopes Private Hospital, Adj. Prof Ashish Gupta and Adj. Prof. Ken Cutbush), and academic partners from the University of Queensland, University of New South Wales, visited the centre to review our research highlights from 2022.

For some, it was a first-time visit with members of the center team usually located in University of New South Wales and NeURA (post-doc Dr. Bart Bolsterlee, PhD student Yilan Zhang, and PhD student Mr. Hossein Ahmadi) meeting their colleagues for the first time.

The research symposium was opened by Centre Director Prof. Yuantong Gu with the official Welcome to Country where we acknowledged the Turrbal and Yugara as the First Nations owners of the lands where QUT currently stands; which was shortly followed by our 4 progam stream updates by our program leads and post-docs as follows:

Program 1
Prof Peter Pivonka – In-silico Upper Extremity Modelling & Simulation
Dr Bart Bolsterlee – Diffusion tensor imaging for assessment of muscle architecture in the shoulder

Program 2
A/Prof Saulo Martelli – Robotically assisted Joint Testing and Surgical Guidance
Dr Dermot O’Rourke – Biomechanical comparison of techniques for glenoid component implantation in shoulder arthroplasty

Program 3
Prof Justin Cooper-White & Dr. Eleonore Bolle – Tissue-engineered Scaffolds for Rotator Cuff Repair

Program 4
Prof Graham Kerr – Treatment Effectiveness – Digital & robotic technologies for upper limb movement assessment, physiology and rehabilitation
Dr Wolbert van den Hoorn – Validity of post-surgical shoulder mobility assessment tool: mymobility® App

After some refreshment, the symposium continued with the launch of our Seed Grant Scheme session and an inspirational speech by our guest Mr. Stephen Delo, Innovation Consultant expert and symposium career panellist. Mr Delo. brought his immense experience in his talk entitled ‘A Culture & Practice of Innovation,’ where he detailed insights and lessons from his extensive career in personal leadership and team management across 2 navies.

As an innovation consultant, Steve’s career has brought him to face many challenges and to tackle many career opportunities across a breadth of disciplines. He is currently acting as the Senior Advisor, Innovation, for the New Zealand Defence Force where he has established and facilitated networks and processes to assist intrapreneurial activity now leading to international engagements.  He also currently works with Black Sky Aerospace as he applies his transformative leadership to innovative start-ups.

Steve offered the following simple, yet immensely powerful advice on how to create a culture of innovation to the team, regardless of career stage or discipline:

– Innovation is a resource and a commodity you can trade. It is valuable and not to be underestimated. Self belief is one the biggest factors for success. Move forward and ask yourself, ‘What is the risk of not doing it?’

– The team is more powerful than the individual. How do you measure success. Individually or as a team?

– Innovation is a social activity. Plant the seed and pay it forward to your team so they too can have the opportunities to advance.

– The seas of life can be rough, your team is your life jacket.

Steve’s talk highlighted the importance of collaboration and team dynamics for successful innovation across companies, industries, and fields which is core to the governance structure and vision for personalised patient care for the centre.

With this introduction, we introduced our seed grant pitchers who were tasked with designing cross-program and collaborative research projects with industry, academia, and our clinical partners for the opportunity to win a seed grant to to maximum total of $15,000 AUD.

Our 4 contenders presented their pitches to our esteemed seed grant panellists: Mr. Massoud Shahi (Zimmer Biomet), Prof. Yi-Chin Toh (QUT (Queensland University of Technology) University of Technology), Prof. Kevin Tetsworth (MQ Health), and Prof. Peter Pivonka (QUT (Queensland University of Technology).

Order of Presentations:

1. ‘Explainable Deep Learning approach for shoulder abnormalities detection.’  Lead Investigator: Dr Laith Alzubaidi; with co-investigators Mr. Jinshuai Bai, Dr. Asma Salhi, and Dr. Freek Hollman. Industry mentors: Prof. Yuantong Gu (QUT), Adj. Prof. Ashish Gupta (QUASR, Greenslopes Private Hospital, Akunah), and external collaborator Prof. Amin Abbosh (University of Queensland).

2. ‘Biomechanical characteristics of the human supraspinatus tendon in vivo under physiological loading.’ Lead investigators: Dr. Bart Bolsterlee, Dr. Eleonore Bolle, and Dr. Wolbert van den Hoorn; with co-investigators Dr Freek Hollman, Miss Yilan (Olivia) Zhang, Miss Asawari P., and Miss Sepideh Shemshad. Industry mentors: Prof. Lynne Bilston (University of New South Wales) and Adj. Prof. Ken Cutbush (Ken Cutbush Clinic – Brisbane Private Hospital).

3.  ‘Non-invasive assessment of rotator cuff function.’ Lead Investigator: Dr. Wolly van den Hoorn; co-investigators: Dr. Eleonore Bolle, Dr. Roberto Pareyon, Mr. Francois Bruyer-Monteleone, and Miss Yuyao (Amy) Ma. Industry mentors: Prof. Francois Hug from the Université Côte D’Azur, A/Prof Kylie Tucker (University of Queensland), and Adj. Prof Ashish Gupta (QUASR, Greenslopes Private Hospital, Akunah).

4. ‘Toward precision tracking of the shoulder joint using ultrasound tomography.’ Lead investigator: Dr Dermot O’Rourke; with Mr Arun Jolly, Mr Ahmed Sewify, Miss Natali Uribe, Dr Roberto Pareyon, Mr Maxence Lavaill, and Mr xiaolong fan. Academic mentor: A/Prof Saulo Martelli.

After an exciting back and forth between the presenters, judges, and audience with some tricky questions, we welcomed our career panellists A/Prof Kylie Tucker (The University of Queensland), Mr Alex Muir (Logemas), Ms Jenna Lyon (Stryker), and Mr. Stephen Delo MBE, FCPHR to share their unique insights into collaboration, teamwork, and what it takes to succeed in the world of collaborative research and as part our our panel ‘Innovation Culture and Your Career.’ Moderated by our clinical lead Adj. Prof. Ashish Gupta (QUASR, Greenslopes Private Hospital), Akunah, the panel shared a few gems with the audience regarding the elements for successfully building a career and creating opportunities for yourself and others:

1. Mr Stephen Delo MBE, FCPHR: It is important for each member for the team to be who they are. Everyone brings a superpower, and that’s what people look for when building a team. The trick is to ensure joint vision so individuality doesn’t cost the team goal. Everyone must pull in the same direction.

2. Ms Jenna Lyon: Recruiters acknowledge the balance between technical ability and team fit. Attitude and self-motivation can make someone stand out more than their technical ability.

3. Mr Alex Muir: Values are important in collaborative team work and recruitment – ensure you research the company’s values and get clear on how you align before approaching them.

4. Mr Stephen Delo MBE, FCPHR : Mindset is a switch – it can be turned on and off. be mindful of self-talk and how you perceive others to foster motivation.

With thanks to our panellists and gifts of appreciation, at 5:00pm we moved to our last segment of the day with our poster display and networking event in the Cube. It was fantastic to see the students sharing their research methodology and results with the industry partners, and the great interest taken in particular by our early PhD students in the center to Mr. Delo’s work regarding collaborative culture and career coaching.

At 5:30pm we celebrated one last substantial achievement, with the announcement of our seed grant winners:  Team 1 ‘Explainable Deep Learning approach for shoulder abnormalities detection.’  Lead Investigator: Dr Laith Alzubaidi, and Team 4 ‘Toward precision tracking of the shoulder joint using ultrasound tomography.’ Lead investigator: Dr Dermot O’Rourke.

Thank-you again to our key partners and our industry partners from our Industry Advisory Committee (IAC). Left to Right: Adj. Prof. Ashish Gupta (QUASR, Greenslopes Private Hospital, akunah), Prof. Peter Pivonka (QUT (Queensland University of Technology) & Centre Deputy Director), Mr Alex Muir (Logemas), Ms Jenna Lyon (Stryker), Mr David Brezzo (Zimmer Biomet), Ms Monica Russell (Materialise), and Prof. Yuantong Gu (QUT (Queensland University of Technology), Centre Director).

We can’t wait to showcase our research developments and growth with you all at the next Research Symposium.

Thank-you to everyone at the  Australian New Zealand Society of Biomechanics (ANZSB) and everyone involved in the organisation of the 13th Australasian Biomechanics Conference (ABC13).

The 13th Australasian Biomechanics Conference (ABC13) was held in Brisbane and what a fantastic opportunity it was for the team to come together with their biomechanical colleagues and showcase their research highlights from the last 12 months. 

With three full exciting days of lectures, workshops and innovation from Nov 27th to Nov 29th, we wish to congratulate the team on the following achievements: 

Presentations:

  

Mr. xiaolong fan addressed the complication rates from mechanical implant failure of the humeral component in reverse total shoulder arthroplasty by presenting a novel time-elapsed microstructural imaging protocol for observing the volumetric deformation of a humerus implanted with a common shoulder reverse implant in his talk ‘Time-elapsed microstructural imaging of failure of a reverse shoulder implant.’

Mr. Maxence Lavaill then provided a professional presentation on the #Latarjet procedure (a surgical technique used to stabilise the #glenohumeral joint (GHJ) after recurrent anterior dislocations due to anterior genoid bone defect, and his project to quantify the change in muscle forces and joints following surgery using computational musculoskeletal (MSK) models. His talk was entitled ‘ Muscle coordination after Latarjet increases joint stability: A musculoskeletal study.’ 

Spine Biomechanics:

Our affiliate PhD student, Miss Natalia Mühl Castoldi, presented her work on spinal bulk growth models in the framework of generalized continuum mechanics to better understand the mechanisms linked to spinal growth.

Shape Modelling in Biomechanics

Centre post-doc Dr. Dermot O’Rourke detailed his research into knee bone geometries passive tibiofemoral motion variation using partial least square regression (PLSR). 

#Clinical Biomechanics and Imaging:

Miss Yilan (Olivia) Zhang, Prof. Lynne Bilston, Prof. Robert Herbert & Dr. Bart Bolsterlee ‘ Three dimensional architecture of human rotator cuff muscles in vivo.’ 

Prof. Lynne Bilston & Dr. Bart Bolsterlee ‘in vivo compressive shear properties of adipose tissue (fat).’

Conference Posters

Affiliate PhD student Mr. Corey Miller ‘A multiscale, mechanobiological model of cortical bone adaption due to Pth and mechanical loading.’ 

Dr. Wolbert van den Hoorn & Prof. Graham Kerr ‘Mapping magnetic field disturbances in motion capture labs.’ 

Affiliate PhD student Miss Laura Maszaros ‘Differences in load-sharing using a generic and subject specific neuro-musculoskeletal model of the spine.’ 

With culmination in the final dinner held at Felons Brewery, the team had a wonderful time connecting over all things biomechanical!

A huge thank-you to the major sponsor Logemas and to Materialise for their fantastic workshop ‘MIS Workshop- Beginners Session.’ 

We look forward to attending ABC14 in 2023! 

On November 24th 2022, we had the pleasure of hosting Dr Dr Shari Walsh from Resilient Researcher who presented her workshop ‘Spreading the word (presenting & networking).’

Our phd students and post-docs learned tips on how to overcome the all-too-common anxiety that comes with presenting and networking, as well as body language skills to both present confidently and to read networking situations to assert ourselves and make valuable connections.

Some useful tips were:

*Ground yourself before presentations. Carry a stone or favourite object in your pocket to centre yourself. Consider harnessing #deepbreathingand power poses to boost your performance.

*Try to read networking situations and whether groups are open or closed to determine if it is acceptable to make an approach.

*When attending a networking event, try to get access to the guest list and pre-prepare some questions. Asking ‘What made you decide to attend today’s conference?’, or ‘What is your favourite presentation of the symposium thus far?’ are more than acceptable ice-breaking questions.

*Don’t be afraid to approach well-known individuals. Believe in your value as a potential connection and harness their curiosity about your research to make relevant but engaging conversation.

*Following up with people you meet at networking events: A friendly reminder about where you met and what you were conversing about may be enough for them to remember you, even if they don’t remember your face. It’s acceptable to politely follow-up every few months and to share interesting research in your field or upcoming events to keep your connection alive.

As an Australian Research Council funded Industrial Transformation Training Centre, we are always looking to develop the skills of our team to ensure their research make real-world impacts, and to strengthen their career readiness. What a great way to prepare for our 2022 Research Symposium #ITTC2022ResSym, which kicks off tomorrow.

On the 20th of November Peter Pivonka our Centre Deputy Director and Program 1 Lead attended the official opening of the ARC Training Centre for M3D Innovation at ANU.

By using cutting edge micro-CT imaging, reconstruction, analysis and visualisation methods developed at The Australian National University, researchers can probe, analyse, model and reconstruct the 3D structure of material samples at the metre scale with resolutions down to a few hundred nanometres to garner a deep understanding of the structure of materials at multiple scales.

With our program 1 team developing computational frameworks for modelling shoulder function, we are excited to explore the implications for 3D modelling in orthopaedics at our centre, with the visit highlight being their amazing large scale microCT device. We hope to collaborate with the centre in future and to promote knowledge sharing between a one of our fellow Australian Research Council Industrial Transformation Training Centres.

One aspect of particular interest to our centre’s research is their work with Micro-CT imaging and their new large scale device. Micro-CT imaging is a 3D imaging technique that utilizes X-rays to see inside an object, slice by slice.

Micro-CT, also called microtomography or micro computed tomography, is similar to hospital CT or “CAT” scan imaging but on a small scale with greatly increased resolution. Samples can be imaged with pixel sizes as small as 100 nanometers and objects can be scanned as large as 200 millimeters in diameter.

Some of our PhD students such as Mr Ahmed Sewify are currently working on an automatic ultrasound imaging-based tomography of the shoulder to track bony structures in real-time. Although using different imaging tools, the centre of M3D Innovation’s advancements could be a huge game changer in how we at the centre go about creating our own 3D models and how we then can apply them for use in the orthopaedics industry.

We wish the team at M3D all the best for their launch and for a successful first year.

Image: Large  scale microCT device