AME - Tissue Mechanics Laboratory Undergraduate Research

The Notre Dame Tissue Mechanics Laboratory is focused on diseases related to bone and bone marrow. We have three focuses at this time:

1. Bone adaptation to mechanical load. This affects normal bone growth, integration of orthopaedic devices (e.g. hip or knee replacements) with bone, and osteoporosis.
2. Cancer metastasis to bone. Bone is the primary location for metastasis of breast and prostate cancers. Most people who die from breast and prostate cancers have metastases to bone, while most who survice do not. These remote tumor lesiions are difficult to diagnose because it is hard to image inside of the bones, and they are hard to treat because the tumor cells epigenetically transform and the bone microenvironment is unfavorable for normal chemotherapies to be effective.
3. Multiple Myeloma is another cancer that affects the bone. It is an immune cell (B-Cell) cancer, and it affects bone strength as well as immune functions.

Students should have interesting in cell/tissue culture, understand basic mechanics (e.g. AME 20224), and/or have interest in computational simulations.