Soft tissue biomechanics: In vitro, in vivo and silico trials for trauma prevention and repair

The soft tissues in our body are continuously engaged in mechanical interaction, with themselves but also with external devices. These devices may serve to protect (e.g. a helmet), repair (e.g. surgical instruments) or replace (e.g. prostheses) our native tissues. Profound knowledge about the mechanical behavior of these tissues and their interactions is essential to optimize the design of these external devices and treatments, and to understand pathologies that originate from unphysiological mechanical loading. My research focuses on understanding the mechanobiological response of biological soft tissue (a.o. arteries, veins, brain and cartilage) to (un)physiological loading, and exploiting this understanding to minimize damage. This involves an intricate combination of rigorous multi-axial experimental testing and mechanobiologically inspired constitutive and numerical modeling, and has a multitude of clinical applications, from aneurysm rupture prediction over brain contusion prevention to cartilage repair.