Event
BIOE Seminar: Joint Health and Disease at the Interface of Imaging, Mechanics, and Biology
Friday, April 11, 2025
9:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m.
A. James Clark Hall, Room #2121
John Fisher
jpfisher@umd.edu
Deva Chan
Assistant Professor
Purdue University
Joint Health and Disease at the Interface of Imaging, Mechanics, and Biology
Abstract
Osteoarthritis is the most common joint disorder in the United States, and its prevalence is only expected to rise as the population ages. Conversely, what are considered preventable risk factors for OA – from musculoskeletal injuries to lifestyle factors – have a rising incidence in younger populations. However preventable some of these factors may be, current medical interventions have proven powerless to halt the progression of OA once degeneration of the joint tissues has initiated. Efforts to treat OA are hindered by a multitude of factors, from inadequate detection methods for early OA to still incomplete understanding of synovial joint health and the initiation and progression of disease. In this talk, I will overview our multi-disciplinary efforts to better understand the many interacting factors that modulate the synovial joint in its healthy and diseased states. In particular, I will highlight MRI-based approaches to studying cartilage biomechanics, the mechanical and bioactive roles of hyaluronan in cells and tissue of the synovial joint, and recent research in the role of the “gut-joint axis” in joint health and injury.
Speaker Bio
Dr. Deva Chan is currently an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering (by Courtesy) at Purdue University, where she is also the Director of Graduate Studies in Biomedical Engineering. She received a B.S. in Engineering from UC Berkeley and an MS in Biomedical Engineering at UC Davis before earning her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at Purdue. She trained as a postdoctoral fellow at Rush University Medical Center, funded in part by an Arthritis Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. She then served at the NIH Clinical Center as a research fellow through the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine. She joined Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute as faculty in 2016 and moved her lab to Purdue in 2020. At Purdue, the Chan Musculoskeletal Research and Innovation (MRI) Lab integrates biomedical imaging, biomechanics, extracellular matrix biology, and computational approaches in studying systems from cells to small animals to humans. Dr. Chan was awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award to study the role of cell and tissue level mechanical loading on hyaluronan metabolism and function and a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Young Faculty Award to study the role of the gut microbiome in modulating musculoskeletal injury risk.
