Sahand Zanjani-Pour

Dr Sahand Zanjnai-pour received his PhD degree in physics from the University of Exeter in July 2017.  The aim of Sahand’s PhD was to incorporate finite element (FE) modelling and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to investigate the pressure distribution in the lumbar spine in sitting and standing with respect to supine postures. Sahand continued his work as a research associate to model the spine in flexion and extension postures based on quantitative fluoroscopy (QF) data, whilst writing his PhD thesis. Sahand was also the entrepreneur lead of a short-term ICURe Innovation to Commercialisation project funded by HEFCE and InnovateUK.

In 2017, Sahand joined the INSIGNEO institute at the University of Sheffield to work as a Postdoctoral Research Assistance. Sahand’s project was to work on a proof of concept project within Multisim. Sahand has managed to develop a method to create an FE model of the mouse knee joint in the rest position with realistic geometry of the bone cartilage based on phosphotungstic acid (PTA) stained micro computed tomography (micro CT) scans.

Sahand is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford with a project title of computational modelling of tendon tissue engineering in the humanoid bioreactor. His main supervisors are Dr Pierre-Alexis Mouthuy (NDORMS), Professor Antoine Jérusalem (Engineering) and Professor Sarah Waters (Mathematical institute).

The first step in this project would be to model the existing scaffold in the human bioreactor. The design of this scaffold would be potentially improved based on the future analysis. After that, the humanoid bioreactor would be modelled in the abduction-adduction movement with the present media fluid flow. In the future, the effect of mechanical forces on cell growth and extra cellular matrix growth the humanoid bioreactor will be investigated in this model.