Orthopedic Bioengineering
Research Laboratory

Dr. Minyi Hu holds a Ph.D. degree in Physiology and Biophysics and a Master degree in Basic Health Sciences from Stony Brook University. She has extensive experiences in research areas of bone biomechanics and cellular response to mechanical signals. The goal of her Ph.D. thesis research was to develop a novel, non-invasive mechanical stimulus to inhibit bone loss under disuse condition. Upon completion of her Ph.D. study, Dr. Hu was promoted to the position of Postdoctoral Research Associate. Her current research focus is to study calcium response of bone cells to in vitro and ex vivo biomechanical stimulations. Based on her research efforts, Dr. Hu has been honored with awards including Young Investigator Travel Grant (ASBMR 2012), Student Short Talk Travel Award (BMES-SPRBM 2012), President's Poster Competition Award (ASBMR 2011), Webster Jee Young Investigator Award (ICHTS 2011), and Student Paper Award (International Bone Fluid Flow Workshop 2010).

Minyi Hu's LinkedIn

Hua Yue, M.D./Ph.D., is an Associate Chief Physician in the Department of Osteoporosis, Metabolic Bone Disease and Genetic Research Unit, Shanghai Jiao Tong University affiliated Shanghai People’s Hospital. At present, She is a visiting scholar working in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Stony Brook University. Her research interests are molecular genetic mechanisms of osteoporosis and metabolic bone disease. In the past few years, Dr. Yue and Her colleagues have established the Chinese Han ethnic peak bone mineral density nuclear families and carried out multiple candidate genes SNP studies in osteoporosis. Meanwhile, a lot of gene mutation detection work has been done in the area of monogenic metabolic bone diseases and reported some new gene mutations in the world. Altogether, 6 papers have been published in journals of bone metabolism, including Osteoporosis International, Journal of Bone and Mineral Metabolism, and Bone, et al. Currently, Dr. Yue is holding a “National Natural Science Foundation” grant and “Shanghai Rising-Star Program”, granted by Shanghai Science and Technology Committee (STCSM). As one of the key investigators, She is also involved in several other National Natural Science Foundation grants.

Liangjun Lin holds a M.S. degree of Biomedical Enginnering from Stony Brook University, and is currently a Ph.D. candidate. His research interests include biomechanics, quantitative ultrasound, and orthopaedics. Liangjun's current research is focused on 1) developing a novel quantitative ultrasound measurement protocol to predict the principal structural orientation of spherical trabecular bone model; 2) using finite element analysis to evaluate the mechanical properties in the principal structural orientation predicted by quantitative ultrasound; 3) applying this novel quantitative ultrasound measurement on human calcaneus as an improved evaluation for the mechanical properties. It is hypothesized that by applying the novel quantitative ultrasound measurement of principal structural orientation on human calcaneus, the correlation between the quantitative ultrasound parameters and the mechanical properties of calcaneus can be increased. Based on his excellent performance working on his thesis entitled "Analysis of Principal Structural Orientation of Trabecular Bone Using Quantitative Ultrasound", Liangjun has been honored with Best Poster Presentation Award (Department of Biomedical Engineering, Stony Brook University 2012) and President's Poster Competition Finalist (ASBMR 2012).

Liangjun Lin's LinkedIn

Tony Zhang's research interest has a wide spectrum ranging from the technology-assisted rehabilitation for individuals with neurological disorders, to the non-invasive diagnostic and therapeutic orthopedic mechanisms that can be utilized in the treatment and prevention of disease and injury of bone tissue. One of his research interests is rehabilitation science including motor control and FES-induced movement and exercise interventions. He did related musculoskeletal  researches during his senior year in undergraduate study and had one paper, Research on the Rehabilitation of Muscle Function of Stroke patients Based on EEG and EMG Signals, published on one of China‘s core biomedical journals. During Tony's continuous study in the BME Department of Cornell University, he chose biomedical instrumentation and Rehabilitation as his specialty and fulfilled the final design project of Pediatric Head Circumference sensing device design, aiming to promote the health condition of newborn babies and toddlers. Currently Tony is working in the Orthopedic Research Lab with Professor Yi-Xian Qin at Stony Brook University studying the new therapeutic approach for the anabolic treatment of immobilization-induced osteopenia. Disuse is a common clinical condition associated with long-term bed resting and disuse induces bone loss by increasing bone resorption and decreasing bone formation. Disuse also affects millions of patients with postmenopausal osteoporosis. Results of Scl-Ab on increasing bone mass through stimulating bone formation and inhibiting bone resorption has been observed in previous animal study conducted by Amgen. Sclerostin deficiency in humans and together with data from sclerostin-knockout mice suggested that sclerostin inhibition might be an attractive approach for the development of a novel bone anabolic agent.

Nan Shen is a bioengineer interested in mechanosensitive genes in bones and cartilage. At present, she is working with a mechanosensitive microRNA - microRNA 365. MiR 365 was previously found to be proliferation-favoring and involved in oncogenesis. But now its role in promoting chondrogenesis is unveiled and Nan is investigating if it is able to restore bone growth in absence of mechanical stimulus. Hindlimb suspended transgenetic mice (8-10 folds of wild type miR365 expression) are compared with hindlimb suspended wild-types. Biomechanical, hitsomorphological, and biomolecular analysis are being done to present a whole map of miR365’s roles in bones, cartilage, connective tissues and sub-chondral red bone marrow.

Ram Ghosh is currently a doctoral graduate student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering Orthopeadic Research Laboratory. He joined in this lab during his junior year as an undergraduate student at Stony Brook University. His research focuses on the development of non-invasive ultrasonic system for bone and tissue assessment. The main goal of his project is image reconstruction using scanning acoustic diagnostic system. He is also involved in the project related to therapeutic ultrasound. This is a novel technique to ensure a faster fracture healing. Besides doing research, Ram also likes to do skateboarding.

Neville's research interests are the application of computational tools and experimental expertise to design and analyze macromolecular structures used in biological processes. His current project focuses on using Abaqus to test the strain amplification model of the osteocyte. By using nanoCT data of osteocyte cannuliculi, advanced data processing algorithms and current knowledge of the osteocyte cytoskeleton, Neville has recreated the entire osteocyte cytoskeleton for testing using the Finite Element Method (FEM). With this model, he seeks to answer the fundamental questions of how the osteocyte senses strain, and how this mechanism can fail in older osteocytes. Several awards that Neville has received include the Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC) Fellowship from September 2011 to May 2013 and the Summer Research Training Program (SRTP) Fellowship at UCSF from May 2012 to August 2012.