Bioreactor development for the evaluation of OA bone adaptation
Despite its prevalence, few options exist to capture tissue changes leading to OA prior to irreversible cartilage and bone degradation. Recent research has indicated that subchondral bone changes may precede changes to the cartilage, providing targets for the development of imaging biomarkers and regions that may respond to therapeutics – aimed at slowing or stopping OA disease progression. Although bone and joint tissues dynamically respond to their physiological and mechanical environment, little is known about how changes in subchondral bone structure alter mechanotransduction across the osteochondral interfaces. This is partially due to difficulty in precisely measuring the mechanical loading environment during bone adaptation and isolating the effect of mechanical stimuli from other systemic factors in animal or human models. This also limits the ability to develop advanced orthopaedic devices because controlled and accurate testing methods are limited in the ability to quantify bone adaptation at critical interfaces between the device and bone. This project aims to further develop an ex vivo bioreactor and loading system that combines well-established organ culture methods with mechanical loading to provide a controlled environment that eliminates unknowns within the mechanical loading environment using bone samples from end-stage OA joint arthroplasty patients.
PDF project lead: Dr. Mahsa Zojaji (2025 - Present)
MSc project lead: Teodora Maluckov (2025 - Present)
Project funding: Arthritis Society Canada Stars Career Development Award & Ignite Innovation Grant
Project Collaborators: Louis Ferreira (Western), George Athwal (Western), Heidi Ploeg (Queens)
Publications: Zojaji et al. (2026)
Development of a glenohumeral FE-MSK framework for evaluation of OA-related biomechanical joint alterations
Glenohumeral osteoarthritis (OA) is a progressive whole-joint disease and a major cause of pain, disability, and reduced quality of life in adults, yet the mechanobiological drivers of disease progression and post-arthroplasty failure remain incompletely understood. Existing finite element (FE) models of the shoulder frequently rely on non-shoulder specific bone material properties, simplified loading conditions, and limited experimental validation, restricting their utility for subject-specific surgical decision-making. This project will develop and validate an integrated experimental-computational framework that couples shoulder-specific bone and ligament mechanics with musculoskeletal (MSK) model derived loading to improve prediction of glenohumeral joint mechanics in OA.
PhD project lead: Johannes Eichwalder (2025 - Present)
Project funding: Arthritis Society Canada Stars Career Development Award
Muscle–bone interactions in shoulder OA
Recent research has highlighted OA as a whole-joint disease with inter-related degradation across different tissues. Despite this new knowledge, most OA-related research focuses on single-tissue evaluation of disease progression. This research aims to evaluate the interactions between muscle and bone in glenohumeral OA using recent improvements in quantitative imaging methods.
MSc project lead: Olivia Yang (2025 - Present)
Project funding: Arthritis Society Canada Stars Career Development Award
An experimental-computational framework for evaluation of the Kinn Automatic Volume-Management Socket System
This project aims to develop and validate a computational–experimental framework for evaluating a novel adaptive prosthetic socket system using an automatic volume-management design. The primary objective is to quantify how dynamic interface adjustment influences mechanical load transfer, and residual limb volume fluctuations under simulated occupational conditions. The project is grounded in ISO 10328 guidelines for structural testing of lower-limb prosthesis and will expand into real-world use cases optimized for adaptive prosthetic design evaluation. This will be achieved by integrating limb–socket interface FE modeling with experimental mechanical testing that replicate task-relevant loading scenarios such as prolonged stance, cyclic loading, and variable terrain dynamics.
PhD project lead: Mary Robakowski (2026 - present)
RA lead: Matthew Tilley (2026 - present)
Project funding: MITACS Accelerate
Project collaborators: Vessl Prosthetics
Validating finite element models of acromial fracture
Fractures of the acromion occur following reverse shoulder arthroplasty, primarily due to changes in the biomechanics of the glenohumeral joint that change the moment arm of the deltoid increasing stress on the acromion. Despite the commonality of these fractures, current finite element models (FEMs) of acromion fractures lack validation against experimental models. This project aims to validate acromion fractures using cadaver models.
MSc project team: Anna Yang
Project funding: NSERC Discovery Grant
Project collaborator: Louis Ferreira (Western)
Publications: Pervez et al. (2025)