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Publications (56)
Targeting the goal of deliver appropriate mechanical stimulation for osteoinduction of cells cultured in a region-of-interest, we optimize the culture medium flow of an existent original 3D printable bioreactor design, previously developed. This optimization process was performed by numerical modelling of small design variations concerning the flow...
Tissue Engineering is seen as the ultimate strategy in the treatment and replacement of lost or damaged tissues, by studying the possibility of reproducing biophysical environments to mimic the function and structure of a part of the human body, thus leading to new perspectives on tissue reconstruction. Recent advances in the study of bioreactors h...
Peripheral nerve injury remains a clinical challenge with severe physiological and functional consequences. Despite the existence of multiple possible therapeutic approaches, until now, there is no consensus regarding the advantages of each option or the best methodology in promoting nerve regeneration. Regenerative medicine is a promise to overcom...
The use of digital twins in tissue engineering (TE) applications is of paramount importance to reduce the number of in vitro and in vivo tests. To pursue this aim, a novel multimodal bioreactor is developed, combining 3D design with numerical stimulation. This approach will facilitate the reproducibility between studies and the platforms optimisati...
Gait in children with cerebral palsy (CP) is often affected by motor impairments which limit the patient's ability to walk. To improve gait and reduce walking limitations, children with CP need to use ankle foot orthoses. An orthosis is an externally applied device that is designed and fitted to the body to achieve one or more of the following goal...
We review here the current research status on bioreactors for tissue engineering with cell electrical stimulation. Depending on the cell types, electrical stimulation has distinct objectives, in particular being employed both to mimic and enhance the endogenous electricity measured in the natural regeneration of living organisms as well as to mimic...
Characterizing a fruit’s mechanical behavior is an important step towards reducing economic losses due to bruising. Several 3D scanning technologies allow to obtain the external geometry of a fruit, but no easily accessible tools exist for the acquisition of the geometry of internal structures such as the core. We propose a low-cost destructive met...
In recent years, sheep have been reported as the ideal animal model to study osteoporosis, hence it is important to identify instruments, tools and ideal parameters needed to assess the effects of different treatments. In previous studies conducted in other animal models with osteoporosis, the most common parameters used for evaluation concerned pr...
Background: The International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) Core Sets for children and youth with cerebral palsy (CP) offer service providers and stakeholders a specific framework to explore functioning and disability for assessment, treatment, evaluation, and policy purposes in a global context. Objective: Describe gl...
The aim of the present manuscript was to provide information on the suitability of using ovine as models for conducting in vivo bone tissue engineering studies, regarding the biomechanical considerations. Despite the need of knowledge of the animal model used for bone tissue research a good planning and study design is equal important. The purpose...
Characterizing a fruit's mechanical behavior is an important step towards reducing economic losses due to bruising. Several 3D scanning technologies allow to obtain the external geometry of a fruit, but no easily accessible tools exist for the acquisition of the geometry of internal structures such as the core. We propose a low-cost destructive met...
The vision to unravel and develop biological healing mechanisms based on evolving molecular and cellular technologies has led to a worldwide scientific endeavor to establish regenerative medicine. This is a multidisciplinary field that involves basic and preclinical research and development on the repair, replacement and regrowth or regeneration of...
CDRSP, Institute Polytechnic of Leiria, Portugal
The therapeutic effect of three polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) membranes loaded with electrically conductive materials - carbon nanotubes (PVA-CNTs) and polypyrrole (PVA-PPy) - were tested in vivo for neuro-muscular regeneration after an axonotmesis injury in the rat sciatic nerve. The membranes electrical conductivity measured was 1.5±0.5x10(-6) S/m, 579...
Background: The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health for Children and Youth (ICF-CY) provides a common language, classification system and framework across disciplines to describe, monitor and evaluate health status, functioning and disability globally. To our knowledge, the ICF and/or ICF-based tools are not routinely...
First project applying the ICF Core Sets for CP in Portugal - poster presentattion
Ultrasound has been used as a gold standard method to musculoskeletal system evaluation. It allows identifying morphological changes of muscles and tendons, where e.g., the enhanced echo-intensity (EI) on ultrasonography images of skeletal muscle is believed to reflect muscle quality (MQ). The aging process has impact in the population's quality of...
To study the therapeutic effect of three tube-guides with electrical conductivity associated to mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) on neuro-muscular regeneration after neurotmesis.
Rats with 10-mm gap nerve injury were tested using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), PVA-carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and MSCs, and PVA-polypyrrole (PPy). The regenerated nerves and tibial...
Osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee is the most prevalent joint disease and a major cause of disability
in the elderly population. This major clinical problem, which affects more women than men, is worsened
by the well-known loss of skeletal muscle mass with aging. The purpose of the present study was to characterize
the pressure pain threshold (PPT) i...
RESUMO: Tem sido colocada a hipótese da fraqueza muscular estar implicada na relação entre a dor e a incapacidade nos indivíduos com OA (osteoartrose) no joelho. Estes indivíduos apresentam frequentemente um défice na extensão do joelho, sugerindo uma fraca qualidade muscular, com repercussão na capacidade funcional muscular. Este estudo preliminar...
RESUMO: Este projeto pretende desenvolver uma ferramenta computacional que permita analisar de forma simples e rápida diferentes imagens médicas, nomeadamente imagens térmicas. São utilizados algoritmos de segmentação de imagem que permitem uma análise de regiões optimizadas de imagens térmicas bem como será introduzida a opção de padronização que...
The motion of the skeletal estimated from skin attached marker-based motion capture(MOCAP) systems is known to be affected by significant bias caused by anatomical landmarks mislocation but especially by soft tissue artifacts (such as skin deformation and sliding, inertial effects and muscle contraction). As a consequence, the error associated with...
In peripheral nerves MSCs can modulate Wallerian degeneration and the overall regenerative response by acting through paracrine mechanisms directly on regenerating axons or upon the nerve-supporting Schwann cells. In the present study, the effect of human MSCs from Wharton's jelly (HMSCs), differentiated into neuroglial-like cells associated to pol...
Table 3 represents values in seconds (s) that were obtained performing Withdrawal Reflex Latency (WRL) test to evaluate the nociceptive function. This test has been performed pre-operatively (week-0), at week 1 and 2 and after every two weeks until the end of the 20-week follow-up time. Results are presented as mean and standard deviation (SD). N c...
Peripheral nerves have the intrinsic capacity of self-regeneration after traumatic injury but the extent of the regeneration is often very poor. Increasing evidence demonstrates that mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSCs) may play an important role in tissue regeneration through the secretion of soluble trophic factors that enhance and assist in rep...
Despite the great regenerative ability of the peripheral nervous system (PNS), traumatic peripheral nerve damage often causes severe chronic disability. Rehabilitation following PNS trauma usually employs therapeutic exercise in an attempt to reanimate the target organs and stimulate functional recovery. Over the past years, important neurobiologic...
Walking analysis in the rat is increasingly used to assess functional recovery after peripheral nerve injury. Here we assess the sensitivity and specificity of hindlimb joint kinematics measures during the rat gait early after sciatic nerve crush injury (DEN), after twelve weeks of recovery (REINN) and in sham-operated controls (Sham) using discrim...
Functional recovery is the primary goal of therapeutic intervention in neuromuscular rehabilitation. The purpose of this study was to perform a segmental kinematic analysis using both planar angles computation and a tridimensional (3D) reconstruction of the rat hindlimb, regarding the morphology and the movement of each segment. Seven rats were eva...
Peripheral nerves possess the capacity of self-regeneration after traumatic injury but the extent of regeneration is often poor and may benefit from exogenous factors that enhance growth. The use of cellular systems is a rational approach for delivering neurotrophic factors at the nerve lesion site, and in the present study we investigated the effe...
Neurotmesis must be surgically treated by direct end-to-end suture of the two nerve stumps or by a nerve graft harvested from elsewhere in the body in case of tissue loss. To avoid secondary damage due to harvesting of the nerve graft, a tube-guide can be used to bridge the nerve gap. Previously, our group developed and tested hybrid chitosan membr...
Functional recovery is the primary goal of therapeutic intervention in neuromuscular rehabilitation. The purpose of this study was to perform a segmental kinematic analysis using both planar angles computation and a tridimensional (3D) reconstruction of the rat hindlimb, regarding the morphology and the movement of each segment. Seven rats were eva...
Many studies have been dedicated to the development of scaffolds for improving post-traumatic nerve regeneration. The goal of this study was to develop and test hybrid chitosan membranes to use in peripheral nerve reconstruction, either alone or enriched with N1E-115 neural cells. Hybrid chitosan membranes were tested in vitro, to assess their abil...
Poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) nerve tube guides, made of a novel proportion (90:10) of the two polymers, poly(L-lactide): poly(glycolide) and covered with a neural cell line differentiated in vitro, were tested in vivo for promoting nerve regeneration across a 10-mm gap of the rat sciatic nerve. Before in vivo testing, the PLGA 90:10 tubes w...
The goal of the present study was to assess whether in vitro-differentiated N1E-115 cells supported by a collagen membrane would enhance rat sciatic nerve regeneration after a crush injury. To set up an appropriate experimental model for investigating the effects of neural cell transplantation, we have recently described the sequence of functional...
We have recently described the sequence of functional and morphologic changes occurring after a standardized sciatic nerve crush injury. An 8-week post-injury time was used because this end point is the far most used. Unexpectedly, both functional and morphological data revealed that animals had still not recovered to normal pre-injury levels. Ther...
The purpose of this study was to test in vivo two different nerve guides, one of PLGA made of a novel proportion (90:10) of the two polymers, Poly(L-lactide):Poly(glycolide), with (DL-lactide-epsilon-caprolactone) copolyester (Neurolac) tube, in promoting nerve regeneration across a 10 mm-gap of the rat sciatic nerve. Finally, end-to-end coaptation...
The purpose of this study was to test in vivo two different nerve guides for promoting nerve regeneration across a 10-mm gap of the rat sciatic nerve: 1) one made of PLGA in a novel proportion (90:10) of the two polymers poly(L-lactide):poly(glycolide); 2) another made of (DL-lactide-epsilon-caprolactone) copolyester (Neurolac) tube, by comparing i...
APPROACH/METHODS: We have used the rat sciatic nerve crush model. Ankle kinematics was carried out on twelve adult male Sasco Sprague Dawley rats prior to injury and every two weeks during 12-week follow-up time. We have constructed a Perspex tract where rats walked and it was video recorded. 2D biomechanical model was carried out using the bone re...
BACKGROUND: Chronic constriction injury (CCI) of the rat sciatic nerve is a model injury for research of neuropathic pain with injured animals developing mechanical allodynia and thermal hyperalgesia after a few day of the lesion. The injury is described as causing marked nerve damage mainly but not exclusively to large diameter axons, and incomple...
Projects
Projects (7)
Stimuli2BioScaffold FCT Project is hiring! Join our team to work on a rapidly developing area of biomedical research with an active and well-resourced team in the Computational and Mathematics Methods Group which is based in the Central Region of Portugal very close to the sea. Professor Paula Faria is the PI of this exciting project “Stimuli2BioScaffold - Stimuli optimization for BioScaf-folds: from numerical modelling to in vitro tests”. The project is based at CDRSP which is leading a national initiative in Additive Manufacturing especially in the field of scaffolds for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. This is a great opportunity to join an internationally productive team and make a difference. The position is funded by the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT) with additional support from IPLeiria.
We are looking for an adaptable and motivated PhD holder (3 year contract). We particularly welcome researchers interested in numerical and computational methods and programming. Please check all the details on http://www.eracareers.pt/opportunities/index.aspx…. Please send your CV to paula.faria@ipleiria.pt
Bone fractures are one of the major health issue in Europe in terms of economic and social concerns. Tissue engineering is playing a key role on the regeneration of cartilage or bone tissues. Stimuli2BioScaffolds intends to contribute to this research area. It main objectives are: i) to develop a new finite element-based framework (FEMf) that allow the optimization of stimulation parameters (mechanical, electrical and magnetic) of in vitro culture seeded on bioscaffolds, placed at a bioreactor, for later implantation, ii) to design and assemble a new bioreactor, iii) to validate the FEMf and the bioreactor using in vitro studies. An innovative framework will be established and contribute to reduce the number of in vivo tests, saving animals life and an enormous amount of money involved. This project is led by IPLeiria and partnered by IST. Abhishek Datta, from the CCNY, USA and CTO at Soterix Medical, NY, USA is the consultant of this Project.
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Two opportunities (start 2018) to join a rapidly developing area of biomedical research with an active and well-resourced team in the Computational and Mathematics Methods Group which is based in the Central Region of Portugal very close to the sea. Professor Paula Faria is the PI of this exciting project “Stimuli2BioScaffold - Stimuli optimization for BioScaf-folds: from numerical modelling to in vitro tests”. The project is based at CDRSP which is leading a national initiative in Additive Manufacturing especially in the field of scaffolds for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. This is a great opportunity to join an internationally productive team and make a difference. The two opportunities are fully funded by the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT) with additional support from IPLeiria.
We are looking for an adaptable and motivated PhD student with a master’s degree (3year). We are also looking for a PhD holder (3 year contract). We particularly welcome applications from researchers with experience in programming and with the finite element methods. Please send your CV to paula.faria@ipleiria.pt
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O Centro para o Desenvolvimento Rápido e Sustentado de Produto do Instituto Politécnico de Leiria (CDRSP-IPleiria), a Incubadora OPEN, com a colaboração da Portugal Ventures, do Clube OPEN Business Angels do Centro de Transferência de Conhecimento do Instituto Politécnico de Leiria (CTC-IPleiria), vêm por este meio dar conhecimento da abertura das candidaturas da 2ª edição do programa MATERIALIZA. Esta iniciativa conjunta pretende ser um foco de capitalização e de implementação de projetos e ideias quer venham elas do meio académico, bem como das empresas ou ainda do público em geral. Neste programa, o CDRSP-IPleiria pretende apoiar através da disponibilização dos seus recursos tecnológicos e humanos a germinação e validação de projetos; a OPEN disponibilizará o espaço em Co-working (MATERIALIZA) para que as ideias e projetos se consolidem e sejam formadas start-ups; a Portugal Ventures apoiará a consolidação dos projetos de forma a se adequarem aos seus programas de apoio e o CTC -IPLeiria dará o apoio administrativo necessário à proteção da propriedade intelectual da ideia durante o período ¬fixado no termo de aceitação.
Assim, convidamo-lo a juntar-se a nós na dinamização do Programa MATERIALIZA através da sua divulgação junto da comunidade académica que representa. Pode consultar toda a informação adicional (por exemplo, regulamento, deadlines e formulário de candidatura) no site:
http://materializa.ipleiria.pt/
APELAMOS À SUA PARTICIPAÇÃO!
