| 2005 |
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YEAR BOOK |
Trinity College Dublin
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Trinity Centre for Bioengineering (TCBE)
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Established in 2002 under PRTLI Cycle 3 funding, the TCBE has investigators from engineering, dentistry, physiology, and anatomy and collaborates with RCSI, UCD Engineering, and the National Centre for Biomedical Engineering Science (NCBES) at NUIG.
The three themes of research are as follows:
Mechanobiology and tissue engineering: Research questions relate to the factors controlling mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) differentiation and proliferation, especially biophysical factors and uses this information in tissue engineering of cartilage and bone. Ongoing work includes identification of the effect of cyclic strain in collagen/glycosaminoglycan scaffolds on adult rat MSC differentiation to identify osteogenic and chondrogenic stimuli. A collaboration with the SFI Nanoscience Laboratory investigates single cell stimulation using atomic force microscopy.
"Bone-for-life": This is a project on osteoporosis and osteoarthritis, focussing on how bone accumulates microdamage under daily loading leading to fractures and how this can be prevented using drug and other treatments. A model of osteoporosis has been developed and bones scanned to identify differential remodelling responses between normal and osteoporotic animals. The figure shows a microCT scan of a cross section of a sheep bone showing increased remodelling activity, and porosity, in the osteoporotic animal.
Pre-clinical testing of medical devices: This theme involves computational simulations of tissue and the creation of artificial 'mechatronic' muscles. Integrated into this theme is research on the fundamental mechanical properties of human muscle, cardiovascular stents, hip implants (patient-specific prosthesis analysis), and middle-ear implants.
Bioengineering is the science underpinning developments in the medical device industry. The centre has grants from SFI, Enterprise Ireland and the European Commission which fund the work of some 12 Principal Investigators and 20 postdoctoral fellows and postgraduate students.
| List of PIs: |
| Prof. Patrick Prendergast (Centre Director) |
| Dr. Kevin O'Kelly (Centre Deputy-Director) |
| Prof. Brian O'Connell (School of Dental Science, TCD) |
| Dr. Veronica Campbell (Dept. of Physiology, TCD) |
| Prof. Clive Lee (Dept. of Anatomy, RCSI) |
| Mr. Garry Lyons (School of Engineering, TCD) |
| Prof. David Taylor (School of Engineering, TCD) |
| Prof. Noel Claffey (School of Dental Science, TCD) |
| Dr. Fergal O'Brien (Dept. of Anatomy, RCSI) |
| Dr. Ciaran Simms (School of Engineering, TCD) |
| Dr. David FitzPatrick (School of Engineering, UCD) |
| Prof. Peter McHugh (NCBES, Galway). |
Contact: Sheena Brown, Centre Administrator,
E-mail: [email protected] ; or
Prof. Patrick Prendergast, Centre Director, Trinity Centre for Bioengineering,
Parsons Building, Trinity College, Dublin 2;
E-mail: [email protected] ; Web: www.biomechanics.ie