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August 2016: A fond farewell to Rebecca who has taken a position at Trinity College Dublin. We wish her all the best in her new role! July 2016: Two collaborative papers just published this month, the first a collaboration with Megan Killian from the University of Delaware which was published in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research, and the second a review paper with clinical collaborators led by Christoph Lees. Check out the JOR paper here and the review paper here. July 2016: The Developmental Biomechanics Lab now tweets! Follow us July 2016: Stefaan and Niamh gave presentations at the European Society of Biomechanics in Lyon, France. May 2016: Congratulations to Stefaan, who was awarded the Best Poster Award at the INSIGNEO Showcase in Sheffield! SET for Britain March 2016: Stefaan was shortlisted for the SET for Britain Awards, at which early career researchers present their work to MPs at Westminster. Well done Stefaan! March 2016: Rebecca presented a poster at the Orthopaedic Research Society (ORS) meeting in Florida (in Disneyworld!). Her abstract was entitled "Mechanical stimulation is required for normal spinal curvature and vertebral segmentation in the developing chick". December 2015: The Developmental Biomechanics group celebrated Christmas with a pub lunch at our local, The Queen's Arms. Christmas lunch November 2015: Stefaan's paper, entitled "Modeling the biomechanics of fetal movements" has been published in Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology. Former project student Jessica Loo is also an author on the paper. Read the exciting work at the Publications link! October 2015: Welcome to new PhD students Devi Bridglal and Vivien Sotiriou, both former Masters students in the group! And we wish a fond farewell to Zuheir, who finishes his MRes this month. September 2015: The group marked the end of the summer with a yummy pizza lunch at Franco Mancas- even though the weather wasn't good enough for a picnic, we still managed to dine 'al fresco'! Wishing all the best to our five UROP students (4 shown below on left, from left: Jason, Thisara, James and Aidan (Sajni not in picture)) as they return to their studies soon. 2015 UROPs Summer Lunch September 2015: UROP student James Bezer did Imperial proud in captaining the Imperial College Team in Round #1 of University Challenge- best of luck for future episodes James! September 2015: Devi, Niamh, Rebecca, Stefaan, Vikesh and Zuheir all attended MEIBioeng 15 Vikesh Poster in Leeds. Congratulations to Vikesh, who was awarded a prize for his poster ! September 2015: Niamh gave an invited talk at the joint meeting of the Bone Research Society and the British Society for Matrix Biology, in Edinburgh as part of the Muscle and Bone workshop. The talk was entitled "The Importance of Muscle Contractions for Prenatal Skeletal Development". July 2015: Stefaan & Mario presented their research at the European Society of Biomechanics Prague 2015 from July 3rd to 5th in Prague. In between the presentations and posters, there was time to see some of historic Prague! July 2015: Welcome to UROP student Jason Lee, who is an undergraduate student in the Department of Bioengineering. July 2015: Work from Mario's PhD thesis has been published in the Journal of Biomechanics. The paper, entitled "Effects of normal and abnormal loading conditions on morphogenesis of the prenatal hip joint: application to hip dysplasia", is available at the Publications link. July 2015: Welcome to summer UROP students Aidan Acquah and Thisara Niriella, both Department of Bioengineering undergraduate students. June 2015: Welcome to summer UROP students James Bezer, who joins us from the Physics Department at Imperial College, and Sajni Shah, who joins us from Mechanical Engineering also at Imperial College. June 2015: Niamh has been awarded a Departmental "Lecturer of the Year" Award! Teaching Award June 2015: Wishing a fond farewell and best wishes for the future to Tyler Kim, who has completed his UROP project. Tyler did great work getting our research into the developmental biomechanics of the spine up and running. April 2015: The group welcomes Rebecca Rolfe, who joins us this month as postdoctoral researcher, working on the importance of fetal movements for spine development as part of the recently awarded Leverhulme Trust Project Grant! April 2015: Huge congratulations to Mario- soon to be Dr Giorgi- who has passed his PhD viva! Some pictures of the celebrations below! Viva celebrations Viva celebrations March 2015: Niamh presented a talk this month at the ORS 2015 Annual Meeting in Las Vegas, USA. The talk was entitled "The Role of Mechanical Loading in the Prenatal Hip" and was part of a workshop entitled "Hip Evo Devo: Adaptation of the Hip in Phylogeny and Ontogeny", organised by Dr Sandra Shefelbine. Mario also had a poster on display at the conference entitled "The Role of Prenatal Movements in Promoting Postnatal Hip Joint Stability". January 2015: Funding success for the Developmental Biomechanics group! A Project Grant has been awarded by the Leverhulme Trust to Niamh and to her co-investigators Prof James Iatridis (Mount Sinai School of Medicine, USA) and Dr Michelle Oyen (University of Cambridge, UK). The grant will run for 3 years and will research the importance of fetal movements for the development of the spine. January 2015: A new review paper by Niamh entitled "Biomechanics of Fetal Movement" has been published in the eCM Journal and is available at the Publications link. October 2014: Bioengineering MRes students Devi Bridglal and Zuheir Zaidon join the Developmental Biomechanics group this month. Welcome Devi and Zuheir! 6 October 2014: Lisa Abela joins the Developmental Biomechanics group. Lisa's research forms part of an ERC Starting Grant project. Welcome Lisa! October 2014: Goodbye to the talented UROP students who were doing research in the lab this summer, and good luck for the coming academic year! Before the UROP students finished up, the entire group enjoyed a picnic in Hyde Park to celebrate a productive summer, as shown in the picture below. Summer Picnic 4 September 2014: Dr Stefaan Verbruggen joins the Developmental Biomechanics group. Stefaan's research is funded by Arthritis Research UK. Welcome Stefaan! September 2014: Congratulations to Mario, who won the best presentation prize at the first joint meeting of the British Societies for Matrix Biology and Developmental Biology (BSMB-BSDB) held in Norwich, 1st-3rd September 2014. Mario's talk was entitled "The role of fetal movement in prenatal hip joint morphogenesis" and his award was sponsored by Orthopaedic Research UK (ORUK). Well done Mario!! 28 July 2014: Jessica Loo joins the lab this week for her UROP summer placement. Welcome Jessica! 21 July 2014: Cecilia Kan and Daniel Ko join the lab this week for UROP summer placements. Welcome Cecilia and Daniel! 14 July 2014: Akalja Logeswaran joins the lab this week for a UROP (undergraduate research opportunities programme) summer placement. Welcome Akalja! July 2014: Mario was the winner of the European Society of Biomechanics Student Prize- congratulations Mario! ESB Award Winner June 2014: Niamh presented an invited talk entitled "Developmental biomechanics of the prenatal skeleton" at eCM XV: Cartilage & Disc: Repair and Regeneration, in Davos, Switzerland. June 2014: Mario has been shortlisted for the ESB Student Prize, the final for which will take place at the WCB in Boston. Good luck Mario! April 2014: Vikesh and Mario's abstracts were both accepted for oral presentations at the World Congress of Biomechanics, which will take place in July in Boston, USA. April 2014: Hannah Thompson won a poster prize for her poster entitled "How does movement affect skeletal development?" at the recent Musculoskeletal Technology Network Event. Well done Hannah! April 2014: Samantha Martin has joined the Developmental Biomechanics lab as a full time research technician. Welcome Samantha! March 2014: Suzie and Hannah have completed their MRes project in the Developmental Biomechanics Lab, and we wish them every success in their next rotation! February 2014: Another new paper from the Developmental Biomechanics Lab has been accepted for publication. The paper entitled "Immobilised chicks as a model system for early-onset developmental dysplasia of the hip", published in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research (JOR) is available at the Publications link. January 2014: Mario's work has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Biomechanics- congratulations Mario! The paper, entitled "Mechanobiological simulation of prenatal joint morphogenesis" is now available at the Publications link. December 2013: Christmas 2013 Happy Christmas from the Developmental Biomechanics Lab! Here we are with our friends from the Shefelbine Group enjoying a Christmas lunch at Mario and Alessandra's favourite Italian restaurant (in London that is). From left: Andre, Vikesh, Mario, Tyler, Niamh, Helen, Dalila, Hannah, Suzie, Naiara and (taking the picture) Alessandra! December 2013: The Developmental Biomechanics Lab is hiring- please see here for the details of the research technician post which is now open for applications. Deadline for applications is January 7th. November 2013: A new paper from the Nowlan lab is to be published in the Journal of Anatomy and is currently available on early view- read the paper at the Publications link. October 2013: The Lab welcomes MRes students; Susana Ramos and Hannah Thompson, both from the MRes in Biomedical Research. Susana and Hannah will be doing a research project in the lab from October to March 2014. September 2013: Welcome back to Vikesh Chandaria, who returns to the Developmental Biomechanics Lab for his PhD! September 2013: The Developmental Biomechanics Lab waves goodbye to Pyry and wishes him the best for the third year of his degree. September 2013: Mario presented his research in a talk entitled "Mechanobiological Predictions of Fetal Joint Morphogenesis" as part of the Bioengineering 13 conference at the University of Strathclyde, in Glasgow. August 2013: The research planned as part of the upcoming ERC Starting Grant was featured in an article in the Irish Times- read the article here. Niamh was also interviewed on Ireland's national radio station (RTE1), as broadcast on Sunday 4th August. Listen to the podcast of the interview here. July 2013: Listen to a pdocast in which Niamh describes the research going on in the developmental biomechanics lab on the Imperial College News website here July 2013: Niamh has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant, which is worth 1.5 million euro and will last for 5 years. This grant will fund exciting new research into the importance of prenatal movements for normal joint shapes. See the ERC Press release here. Watch this space for studentships and job opportunities as part of the ERC grant! June 2013: Welcome to Pyry Helkkula, who has joined the Developmental Biomechanics Lab as a UROP researcher. Pyry will be working on computational analyses of 3D joint shapes. April 2013: Research from our lab was featured on the Imperial College London as part of promotion of the Imperial College Fringe Event, which will take place on the 3rd and 4th May 2013. Read the story here, and drop by the Imperial College Festival on the 3rd or 4th May to meet the researchers involved! March 2013: Vikesh sucessfully completed his MRes project in the Developmental Biomechanics lab. Good luck to Vikesh in the second part of his MRes! January 2013: Mario and Niamh attended the 2013 Annual Meeting of the Orthopaedic Research Society (ORS), where Mario presented a poster on his research. Mario also presented a talk entitled "Fetal Movements Play an Important Role in Joint Shape Morphogenesis" at the "pre-ORS", the 21st Annual Symposium on Computational Methods in Orthopaedic Biomechanics. October 2012: Vikesh Chandaria (Mres student) is welcomed to the Developmental Biomechanics Lab! September 2012: Mario and Niamh both presented talks at Bioengineering 12, held in Oxford from 6-7th September. Mario's talk was entitled "Influence of Mechanical Forces on Joint Morphogenesis" and Niamh's talk was entitled "Prenatal Movements are Essential for Normal Joint Morphogenesis". Mar 2012: Niamh was part of the winning team at the Imperial College Big Science Pub Quiz! See here for the Imperial College 'Reporter' feature on the quiz, and check out a photo of the winning team here. Mar 2012: The Developmental Biomechanics Lab webpage has gone live!