Past Event! Note: this event has already taken place.
| When: | Wednesday, May 11th, 2022 |
| Time: | 12:00 pm — 1:00 pm |
| Location: | Online via Zoom |
| Audience: | Anyone |
| Contact: | FacultyofEngineeringandDesign@carleton.ca |
Osteoarthritis (OA) is a disease of the articular joints that affects 1 in 7 adults in Canada. Currently having no known cure, OA can be very painful and debilitating, with the standard treatment for advanced OA being joint replacement surgery. Typically considered to be a “cartilage disease”, OA also affects the bone and other tissues around the joint, costing the Canadian healthcare system over $3 billion as more than 130,000 hip and knee replacement surgeries are performed in Canada every year due to OA.
While the cause of OA is often not known, biomechanics within the joint frequently plays an important role. Abnormally high stresses in the tissues may lead to wear-and-tear of the joint, as well as induce metabolic destruction of cartilage tissue. This is exacerbated by subtle joint deformities that have been recently identified.
In this talk, Dr. Speirs will describe the fascinating behaviour of cartilage as a material, and its ability to provide low friction motion under large forces. He will also discuss collaborative research with clinicians at the Ottawa Hospital involving medical imaging (CT, MRI, PET), computer simulation and laboratory testing, which is helping us understand the mechanisms causing arthritis and how it may be treated. Future directions involving tissue engineering will also be presented.
About the Speaker
Dr. Andrew Speirs is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Carleton University, where his research focuses on cartilage, osteoarthritis and medical image analysis. Using a combination of medical imaging, computer simulations and in vitro laboratory experiments, he investigates the causes of osteoarthritis from the macroscopic scale of human movement to the microscopic scale of the cellular micromechanical environment. This approach attempts to link the forces generated in articular joints during daily activities to tissue microscopic damage and changes in cell behaviour that lead to OA.
About the Series
Ingenious Talks is a special speaker series from the Faculty of Engineering and Design that engages the community in discussions of timely and innovative ideas in engineering, design and technology.