About the Project
SPINNER is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Innovative Training Networks (ITN) European Industrial Doctorate (EID) aimed at improving treatments for spine disorders.
SPINNER is recruiting a group of six Bioengineering early stage researchers (ESRs) to be in a position to design the next generation of repair materials and techniques for spine surgery. The project brings together partners from the biomaterials, implantable devices, and computational modelling industries with orthopaedic clinicians and academic experts in cell, tissue and organ scale biomaterials and medical device testing. All projects will be fully grounded in practical industrial and clinical requirements, where the number of patients requiring complex spine surgery is rapidly expanding, and the biomedical engineering industry needs suitably trained, innovators to produce economic solutions to support healthy ageing for the people of Europe.
SPINNER is an academic/ clinical/ industrial partnership and the ESRs will be expected to interact with several partners during their three years of research. The partners are:
University of Sheffield, UK
University of Bologna, Italy
Finceramica, Italy
National Center for Spinal Disorders, Hungary
Ansys, France
ADAGOS, France
Aesculap, Germany
For more information, please visit www.spinner-eid.eu.
The ESRs will be recruited for 36 months and be enrolled onto a PhD programme at one of the academic partner institutions. They will expect to spend at least 18 months at a non-academic partner institution.
ESR6: Statistical shape modelling and reduced order modelling techniques for patient-specific models
Start Date: 01-September-2018
Host Institution: ADAGOS, France
Academic Institution: University of Sheffield, UK
Objectives: The goal is to design a procedure that creates a patient specific in silico model of the spine. This model shall evolve and adapt depending on the real time action of the clinician during the clinical procedure. At each surgical step, the in silico model will test several scenarios and propose to the clinician the best placement of implants. Each possible scenario of implants configuration and order of their placement can be modelled by finite elements model. When the operation is oriented on an individual patient and not on average spinal column, the approach based on resolution of a complete model becomes too computationally expensive, because multiple configurations have to be tested in order to find the optimal one. As a consequence, this approach cannot be efficiently introduced into medical practice.
Recently, the AI solutions have proven to be of great interest for medical applications. The main goal of the future ESR will be the introduction of the reduced order model based on machine learning techniques. Both the real medical data and the results of the finite elements analysis will be used for training of this model.
Required Skills: This ESR should have or be close to obtaining a minimum undergraduate Honours degree (UK 2:1 or better) or MSc (Merit or Distinction) in Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, Signal Processing, or a related discipline. Knowledge of modelling and simulation is essential. Knowledge of deep learning, artificial intelligent and image processing is desirable.
Acquired skills: The ESR will obtain very strong fundamentals on the deep learning techniques and their applications in biomedical studies, GPU computing.
Employability: The ESR will receive a strong background in deep learning applied to biomechanics and therefore companies requiring modelling expertise in the orthopaedic sector or in the biomedical engineering field, or any other engineering field will be interested in such profile.
Informal enquiries: Kateryna Bashtova ([Email Address Removed]) or Lingzhong Guo ([Email Address Removed]).
Language Requirement: International English Language Test System (IELTS) 6.5 Overall, with a minimum of 6 in each category.
Benefits
The MSCA programme offers highly competitive and attractive salary and working conditions. The successful candidates will receive a salary in accordance with the MSCA regulations for early stage researchers. Exact salary will be confirmed upon appointment [Living Allowance = 3,700 euro/year (correction factor to be applied per country) + Monthly mobility allowance = 600 to 850 euro depending on the family situation]. In addition to their individual scientific projects, all ESRs will benefit from further continuing education, which includes internships and secondments, a variety of training modules as well as transferable skills courses and active participation in workshops and conferences. The approximate gross salary stated above is subject to employers statutory deductions and the amount varies according to the living costs of the host country.
PhD fees will be covered by the project grant.
Overseas applicants are welcome, please indicate if you require the host institution to sponsor your work visa.
Funding Notes
The following eligibility criteria apply for these positions:
Mobility: To be eligible for a position, you must not have resided in the same country as the host institution for more than 12 months over the three years leading up to the start date of the position, excluding holidays and (refugee status) asylum application.
Early Stage Researcher: An Early Stage Researcher (ESR) shall at the time of recruitment by the host organisation, be in the first four years (full-time equivalent research experience) of their research careers and have not been awarded a doctoral degree.