Aiqin Liu

• PhD
• Lecturer in Human Biomechanics at University of Leeds

Introduction Knee braces are limited to providing passive support. There is currently no brace available providing both continuous monitoring and active robot-assisted movements of the knee joint. This project aimed to develop a wearable intelligent motorised robotic knee brace to support and monitor rehabilitation for a range of knee conditions in...

Rehabilitation exercise is critical for patients’ recovery after knee injury or post-surgery. Unfortunately, adherence to exercise is low due to a lack of positive feedback and poor self-motivation. Therefore, it is crucial to monitor their progress and provide supervision. Inertial measurement unit (IMUs) based sensing technology can provide remot...

Knee osteoarthritis is one of the most prevalent joint diseases, hence there are increased efforts in developing early intervention strategies to delay knee degeneration. Experimental simulation using human cadaveric tibiofemoral joints has been developed for the functional investigation of tribology and biomechanics of early intervention strategie...

A human cadaveric specimen-specific knee model with appropriate soft tissue constraints was developed to appropriately simulate the biomechanical environment in the human knee, in order to pre-clinically evaluate the biomechanical and tribological performance of soft tissue interventions. Four human cadaveric knees were studied in a natural knee si...

The successful development of cartilage repair treatments for the knee requires understanding of the biomechanical environment within the joint. Computational finite element models play an important role in non-invasively understanding knee mechanics, but it is important to compare model findings to experimental data. The purpose of this study was...

A robust and stratified pre-clinical natural knee model, which has the capability to more appropriately simulate the biomechanical environment in vivo, will deliver more efficient and reliable assessment of soft tissue interventions before clinical studies. In order to simulate the biomechanical function of the natural knee without the natural liga...

Recently, nanometre-sized UHMWPE particles generated from hip and knee replacements have been identified in vitro and in vivo. UHMWPE particles in the 0.1-1.0 µm size range have been shown to be more biologically active than larger particles, provoking an inflammatory response implicated in late aseptic loosening of total joint replacements. The bi...

The successful development of early-stage cartilage and meniscus repair interventions in the knee requires biomechanical and biotribological understanding of the design of the therapeutic interventions and their tribological function in the natural joint. The aim of this study was to develop and validate a porcine knee model using a whole joint kne...

Recently, nanometre-sized UHMWPE particles generated from hip and knee replacements have been identified in vitro and in vivo. UHMWPE particles in the 0.1-1.0 μm size range have been shown to be more biologically active than larger particles, provoking an inflammatory response implicated in late aseptic loosening of total joint replacements. The bi...

It has recently been shown that the wear of ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene in hip and knee prostheses leads to the generation of nanometre-sized particles, in addition to micron-sized particles. The biological activity of nanometre-sized ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene wear particles has not, however, previously been studied due...

The aim of this study is to investigate in vitro release of 17β-estradiol (E2), the potential drug to treat osteolysis, and the biological response to ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene loaded with E2 (UHMWPE-E2) wear debris. The osteoblasts (MC3T3-E1) and macrophages (RAW264.7) were co-cultured with UHMWPE-E2 wear debris via inversion cultur...

The objective of this study was to explore the possibility of UHMWPE implant used as the drug carrier to treat particle-induced osteolysis. 17beta-estradiol (E2), which had the potential application on osteolysis treatment and the high melting point, was added into UHMWPE powder to produce UHMWPE-E2 composites through hot press processing. The hydr...

Ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) induces osteolysis. 17β-estradiol (E2), one of estrogens with the application on osteolysis treatment, was studied as drug effecting on osteolysis. In the present study, UHMWPE was used as the potential implanted drug carrier, which the mixture of drug and UHMWPE powder was hot-pressed. The UHMWPE-E...

The wear particle-induced osteolysis problem was considered as the major concern for limiting the life of total joint prostheses. In the present study, 17β-estradiol (E2), which is one of the estrogens with the potential application on osteolysis treatment, was added into UHMWPE to prepare UHMWPE-E2. The mechanical properties and wear performance o...

Bone-like hydroxyapatite (HA) coatings were fabricated on titanium implants by a self-assembled technique and biomimetic method. After titanium plates were oxidized in a mixture of H2SO4/H2O2, a hexadecanoic acid self-assembled onto titanium surfaces. Contact angles of water and tricresyl phosphate on the surfaces were measured to characterize the...