Biomechanics and Structure-property Relationship in Solid Tumour

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This is a PhD research project in Mechanical Engineering.Biological tissue often has unique three-dimensional hierarchical microstructures and micro-morphologies, constantly evolving through their development and patho-physiological stages. For solid tumour, e.g. in forms of prostate, breast, skin and colorectal cancers, understanding the evolutions of their tissue microstructures is key to their clinical diagnosis. In addition, since the mechanical behaviours, in terms of both solid and fluid ones, highly depend on the tissue microstructures, it becomes possible to utilize the mechanical properties of the cancerous tissue for diagnosis purposes, through quantitative understanding of its structure-property relationship. This PhD project will employ medical imaging and processing techniques, 3D CAD, Finite Element Method and other advanced mathematical and numerical methods, such as homogenisation method (in its asymptotic or numerical forms), in order to quantify the structure-property relationship in various types of solid tumours. This project will benefit from data from existing and on-going work in the area of cancer mechanics in Tissue Mechanics Group, led by Dr Yuhang Chen, in various forms of mechanical characterisations of prostate/colorectal tissues. Although the main goal of this project is to develop novel computational approaches, it is also expected that certain experimental data (such as mechanical characterisation of soft tissue) may be required to validate the proposed modelling approaches.