Do you want to contribute to the development of healthy activity advise to osteoarthritis patients?
Are you eager to work in a consortium with cell biologists, engineers, clinicians and patients?
Are you fascinated by research that combines image analysis, tissue engineering, and numerical modeling, and do you want to contribute from the modeling side?

Job Description

Osteoarthritis, a painful and disabling joint disease, impairs everyday life activities of 1.5 million people in the Netherlands. There is no cure for osteoarthritis; current treatment focusses on reducing pain. Patients are encouraged to stay physically active, but which activity is beneficial, in general or for an individual patient, is unclear. The many partners in the LoaD project will together advance our understanding of how joint loading affects osteoarthritis in the individual patient, by integrating expertise from different disciplines. Effects of mechanical loading at the level of the patient, the joint, cartilage tissue, cell, and even the molecule are combined, and individual genetic variations and differences in responses to inflammation are included, using data from cohorts of osteoarthritis patients to data obtained from highly controlled laboratory experiments. Together, this should result in effective and affordable personalized activity strategies for individual osteoarthritis patients to combat the progression of the disease.

A major challenge in this project is to combine the research in all these disciplines, and translate data between the various studies. It is extremely difficult to understand how daily activity of a patient translates to load in a joint, tissue deformation and mechanotransduction at the cellular level, and subsequently how the cellular response affects the tissue and finally result in either repair of cartilage or further joint degeneration. For such translation, the project includes support through computational modelling.

In the Orthopaedic Biomechanics group, we developed finite element models that can be used to study joint and cartilage mechanics, but also to study cartilage changes over time, and ultimately to predict degeneration or repair, depending on the circumstances. These initial models require further development and tuning with experimental data.

Your task in the LoaD project will be two-fold.
First, you will use the data that comes available through the various studies within the LoaD-project, as well as using literature data, to advance our finite element models of cartilage mechanics, development and degeneration. Second, you will communicate with researchers from the various biomedical areas within LoaD, understand their questions and needs, and where possible support their analyses with model-based insights. Most importantly, you will identify where you can employ your finite element models to cross the bridge between various studies within the consortium, so that we can ultimately integrate the results of all studies into a viable advise on daily activities for patients. The former task requires that you are versatile with finite element modeling in the orthopaedic field, preferably with models of cartilage and joint mechanics.

The latter task requires that you have a self-sufficient, pro-active, curious and explorative character, and that you are generally interested in interdisciplinary biomedical research with a biomechanical context.

Embedding

Your work will be in the context of the national LoaD consortium, in which you will collaborate with many PhD's and other researchers in the consortium. Your main location will be the TU/e in Eindhoven, with the Orthopaedic Biomechanics (OPB) group. This group is headed by prof. Keita Ito, and part of the Regenerative Engineering and Materials cluster of the department of Biomedical Engineering. The research of the cluster is a combination of basic and applied, focusing on adaptation, remodeling, growth, damage and repair in cells and tissues. Principles from fluid and solid mechanics, cell biology, immune-engineering and biophysics are used. Outcomes are translated into advanced medical interventions based on tissue engineering and materials for regenerative medicine, mainly in the areas of cardiovascular and musculoskeletal systems. The OPB group is well known for their multidisciplinary approach combining tissue mechanics, mechanobiology, and biomaterial mechanics. They utilize in vitro, ex vivo and computational models to understand tissue conditions in disease and for regenerative engineering, operating at the international forefront of engineering of living, load-bearing tissues, in particular cartilage, intervertebral disc, tendon and bones. Within the group you will mainly collaborate with dr. René van Donkelaar.

• Motivated researcher, with a PhD in Biomedical Engineering research, or a comparable domain, and versatile with finite element modeling.
• Ability to conduct high quality academic research, reflected in demonstratable outputs.
• A team player who is self-sufficient, pro-active, communicative, curious and open, who enjoys collaborating with PhD students and researchers working in various biomedical fields, and who likes to coach Master's students.
• A proven ability to manage complex projects to completion on schedule.
• Excellent (written and verbal) proficiency in English, good communication and leadership skills.

A meaningful job in a dynamic and ambitious university, in an interdisciplinary setting and within an international network. You will work on a beautiful, green campus within walking distance of the central train station. In addition, we offer you:

• Full-time employment for 3 years.
• Salary in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities, scale 10 (min. €4.020 max. €5.278).
• A year-end bonus of 8.3% and annual vacation pay of 8%.
• High-quality training programs on general skills, didactics and topics related to research and valorization.
• An excellent technical infrastructure, on-campus children's day care and sports facilities.
• Partially paid parental leave and an allowance for commuting, working from home and internet costs.
• A TU/e Postdoc Association that helps you to build a stronger and broader academic and personal network, and offers tailored support, training and workshops.
• A Staff Immigration Team is available for international candidates, as are a tax compensation scheme (the 30% facility) and a compensation for moving expenses.