Design, development and assessment of mechanosensitive reporter constructs to visualize cartilage loading

Cartilage injuries are an important clinical problem. With this project, we aim to prepare for an innovative step to ultimately visualize the effect of different loading conditions on the articular cartilage, immediately after or during mechanical loading. We will evaluate the feasibility of using rational-designed mechanosensitive gene reporter constructs to document the spatial dependent

mechanical topography in chondrocytes subjected to different loading conditions in 3D agarose hydrogels.