Marcus Pandy secures additional $4 million

veski innovation fellow, Professor Marcus Pandy who became Head of the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at Melbourne University on 1 January 2006, presented his Inaugural Professorial Lecture “The Knee Bone’s connected to the …” on Monday, 3 April 2006.

Computational modeling of the human body has risen to new heights in recent years, mainly because of the belief that this approach can yield new insights into how function may be altered by injury and disease.

Recent advances in imaging technology, numerical modeling techniques, and computing power have enabled elaborate models of the body to be built for the purpose of studying tissue function in vivo.

Professor Pandy’s talk described how patient-specific computer models of the muscles, ligaments, cartilage, and bones can be developed from high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging; how dual-plane x-ray fluoroscopy can be used to measure bone movements during dynamic activity with submillimetre accuracy; and how these technologies can be combined with new techniques in computational modeling to interrogate joint health in unprecedented ways.