Two new PhD scholarship (Computational Mechanics in Bioengineering) at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK

The Computational Bioengineering Group in the School of EPS at Heriot-Watt University, UK has two new PhD scholarship available.

*Please indicate which studentship you want to apply for when making informal enquiry to Dr Y Chen (y.chen@hw.ac.uk)

*Please note that ONLY UK/EU applicants may apply for the studentship#2 due to funding restrictions.

PhD Studentship #1

A PhD studentship is available in School of Engineering and Physical Sciences at Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh, UK), supervised by Dr. Y Chen and Prof. RL Reuben, to develop a computational framework that designs the vascular stents using patient-specific data and structural optimisation techniques.

Vascular stent has become a major solution to localised flow constriction in angioplasty. Although there have been substantial successful clinical applications, the lack of structural design based on patient-specific data is the major cause to stent failure, including tissue damage due to non-uniform expansion of stent structure (both in radial direction, i.e. so-called ‘dog-boning effect’; and in peripheral direction caused by nonlinear tissue behaviour and complex vascular geometry) and the restenosis due to improper physiological response of the artery to the stent. Therefore understanding how the stent expands and interacts with blood vessel using the patient-specific data (e.g. shape of the artery and material properties of the vessel wall) is of great importance. On the completion of direct-problem modelling (i.e. how the stent expands), structural optimisation will be used as a mathematical tool to design novel stents with optimised structure based on several criteria identified above.

Funding Notes

This is a 3 year international studentship. It will cover tuition fee as well as carrying an annual stipend of £13,590. UK or EU students will also be considered for this position.

*Evaluation of candidates is expected to begin in Jan/13 and will continue until the PhD position is filled.
*Applications and informal academic enquiries should be directed to Dr Yuhang Chen (y.chen@hw.ac.uk), with a copy of your current CV and other supporting documents. All general enquiries should be directed to the Postgraduate Admissions Office (pgadmissions@hw.ac.uk).

PhD Studentship #2

A PhD studentship, supervised by Dr. Y Chen and Prof. JM Ritchie, is now available in School of Engineering and Physical Sciences at Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh, UK) for UK students and eligible EU students.

Scaffolding as a tissue engineering approach has drawn significant attention in bioengineering community in the past two decades. In principle the tissue scaffolds are expected to be porous, biodegradable and able to provide cell-friendly environment for cell growth during the regenerative process. In this regard, design of scaffold microstructure would be crucial therefore must be taken into account in studying such a dynamically- changing tissue-scaffold system. The first part of this studnetship is to develop a computational framework that characterises the bone tissue-scaffold system in vivo, by addressing the microenvironment (both mechanical and biochemical), scaffold biodegradation, interactions with host tissue (acquisition of complicated 3D wound cavity by imaging with different fixation methods; cell migration and mass diffusion), the cellular mechanobiological response and neovascularisation. The established models will then be used as a framework for design optimisation of scaffold microstructures, which will be fabricated by our state-of-the-art biofabrication facilities.

Funding Notes
Due to the restriction of funding resource, this is a 3.5 year scholarship for UK students (EU students who have lived in UK for more than 3yrs prior to the start of the grant are also eligible). It will cover tuition fee as well as carrying an annual stipend of £13,590.

*Evaluation of candidates will begin immediately and will continue until the scholarship is filled.
*Applications and informal academic enquiries should be directed to Dr Yuhang Chen (y.chen@hw.ac.uk), with a copy of your current CV and other  supporting documents. All general enquiries should be directed to the Postgraduate Admissions Office (pgadmissions@hw.ac.uk).