Paradigm shift in biomechanics: no more research on mechanical properties of tissues

Speaker : Winthrop Professor Karol Miller – University of Western Australia

Venue    : Thu 13 Oct 2016, 4pm (Murdoch University, Senate Conference Room)

It is now recognised that the most urgent task of biomechanists is to devise methods for clinically-relevant patient-specific modelling. A large proportion of the biomechanics community believes that the main obstacle in creating patient-specific models is the difficulty (or impossibility?) of measuring patient-specific properties of tissues to be used in biomechanical models.

For about ten years Intelligent Systems for Medicine Laboratory has advocated a complete refocus of biomechanical research away from describing mechanical properties of tissues. We postulate that instead we need to reformulate computational mechanics problems in such a way that the results are weakly sensitive to the variation in mechanical properties of simulated continua. This suggestion constitutes a paradigm shift in the field and has encountered strong resistance of the more traditionally inclined members of the biomechanics community.

In this seminar I will describe briefly how ISML members’ thinking on this completely new approach to biomechanics has evolved over the years. I will also demonstrate the success of our new approach using examples from the fields of image-guided neurosurgery and vascular biomechanics.

(This talk was previously given as the Hamlyn Distinguished lecture at Imperial and recently at Harvard School of Engineering)