Seminars
Wednesday 17th March 2010, Mile End, Laws Building, Room 207.
Programme:
- 5-5.20pm: "Imaging the microcirculation: New insights into leukocyte-vessel wall interactions in vivo" By Professor Sussan Nourshargh
- 5.20-5.30pm: Discussion
- 5.30-5.50pm: “Applications of numerical modeling in the studies of soft tissues” By Dr Yiling Lu
- 5.50-6pm: Discussion
- 6-7pm: Refreshments
Speakers:
Prof Sussan Nourshargh,
Head of Centre for Microvascular Research, William Harvey Research Institute.
Sussan Nourshargh graduated in Pharmacology from University College London in 1982 and obtained her PhD in Pharmacology from King’s College London in 1986. As her PhD project addressed mechanisms of neutrophil activation in vitro, she extended her interests in this area to the in vivo inflammatory scenario through post-doctoral work at the MRC Clinical Research Centre based in Harrow and then at the National Heart & Lung Institute (NHLI) in London UK where she was appointed to Lecturer position in 1988. Her continued productive research in the field of leukocyte migration resulted in the award of a Wellcome Trust Career Fellowship (1990) followed by a Wellcome Trust University Award (1996) with the latter leading to a tenured academic position within NHLI at Imperial College London UK in 2001. During these periods she rose through the academic ranks and became Professor of Immunopharmacology at Imperial College London in 2006, the same year as she was awarded a Wellcome Trust Programme Grant to extend her work into mechanisms of leukocyte transmigration in vivo. In 2007 she was appointed as Professor of Microvascular Pharmacology by the William Harvey Research Institute to establish and head a new Centre focussing on Microvascular Research. Sussan Nourshargh regularly contributes to key National and International Conferences, was awarded the Quintiles Prize for outstanding contribution to Immunopharmacology from the British Pharmacology Society in 2001 and became Fellow of the British Pharmacological Society in 2005. She has acted as a committee member on the British Heart Foundation Project Grant panel (2002-2006), was a co-founder and committee member of the London Vascular Biology Forum (2001-2008) and is currently the Treasurer of the UK Adhesion Society and Programme Committee member for the American Society of Investigative Pathology (ASIP).
Email: s.nourshargh@qmul.ac.uk
Dr Yiling Lu, Lecturer in Biofluid Mechanics, School of Engineering and Materials Science
Dr Y Lu's research area is in the field of bio-fluid mechanics, tissue and cell mechanics. His research work is mainly numerical, pariticularly finite element method.
His used the poroelastic theory, which accounts for the multiphasic feature of soft tissue, to predict the mechanical response of soft tissue to the external stimuli. His has developed his own code which is able to deal with the dynamic loading at high frequency (~10 Hz) and hetergeneity arising from inhomogeneous mechanical property and strain-dependent permeability. Recenlty he is extending his work to single cell's deformation under external loadings and assists the determination of mechaical property of the cell in the experiment (such as micromanipulation compression test).
Solute transport in soft tissue is another his interest. He coupled the solute transport with the poroealstic theory which enables himsel to examine the nutrient delivery, removal of metabolic waste product in soft tissue. His research work revealed that dynamic loading will enhance the solute transport, which has an important implication in tissue engineering.
He has also been working on the trans-synovial movement of hyluronan. This is in collaboration with Professor J Rodney Levick from St Geoges Hospital Medical school. Dr Lu proposed a a non-steady theoretical model, successfully reproducing the results measured in open-joint persfusion tests. From this work, hyaluronan is found to retain osmotically the synovial fluid by forming a concentration polarisation on the synovium. He is now investigating the HA concentration profile in an intact knee which is of phyioloigical importance but unable to be measured directly.
His research work also includes haemodynamics. His simulation work of blood flow in non-planar bifurcation confirms the important effect of non-planar geometric factor, which is ubiquitous in the vascular tree. This non-planarity helps lower the peak wall shear stress by inducing asymmetric helical flow. Similarly this phenomena is reported in oblique backward facing step problem. He is looking into the effect of oblique step angle and interplay between non-Newtonian property and non-planar geometry.
Email: y.lu@qmul.ac.uk
