"Design of vascular compliant implants: from concept to product" - July 3, 2025, Thursday, 3:00 pm, Pavilhão de Mecânica II, amphitheatre AM

Date: July 3, 2025, Thursday
Time: 3:00 pm
Place: Pavilhão de Mecânica II, amphitheatre AM

• Speaker: Rosaire Mongrain (McGill University)

• Title: "Design of vascular compliant implants: from concept to product"
_{(Seminar delivered in English Language)}

• Abstract:

In view of the aging of the population, there is an increasing need for artificial soft organs and tissues; e.g., cardiac tissue, joint replacement, skin, intervertebral disc, tendons, pelvic floor support. In fact, recent studies show that 15 million people in the United States carry medical implants. From a bio-engineering perspective, there are important physical and mechanical constraints that the synthetic replacements need to mimic to properly substitute the intended function and integrate them with the soft organs. Such technologies have to conform to highly complex anatomical shapes with intricate surfaces and three-dimensional features. Implants, such as stents, grafts, heart valves, sutures, need to be compliant to function in conjunction with their placement in soft tissues to avoid damaging their environment. For example, the large and repeated deformations of soft tissues could subject the implant to highly undesirable tissue deterioration or fatigue damage. Furthermore, the biomaterials used in these implants are directly interfacing with the surrounding soft tissues and organs and thus introduce additional challenges linked to bio-compatibility. In fact, the macroscopic behaviours are the result of changes in the microscopic composition of the tissues and recent results will be presented to illustrate their interdependence. The adaptation of the conventional design process applied to medical implants will be discussed addressing the expansion of the methodology to include specific criteria related to the bio-integration (interaction of the implant with the surrounding biological tissue). Some of these design criteria constitute paradigm shifts which need to be addressed. The expression “Mechanical Compatibility” has been coined in that context in order to ensure proper function of the new compliant implants. The testing and validation methodologies will also be discussed for the context of compliant devices with reference to numerical methods, digital twins, phantoms and norms.

• Short Biographic Note:

Rosaire Mongrain received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Physics from Université de Montréal and a Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Engineering from the École Polytechnique de Montréal. His research interests include the design optimization of blood interacting devices (interventional catheters, ventricular assist devices, heart valves, stents, grafts, filters), the rheological characterization of soft vascular tissue, the development of non-linear constitutive models and the associated numerical simulations. Ongoing activities include the design optimization of a drug coated stent, a left ventricular assist device, a liquid biopsy system, a controlled drug release technology and the elaboration of advanced vascular phantoms, as well as development of PINNs for hemodynamics clinical applications. He published 126 journal publications, 16 book chapters, 385 conference abstracts, and delivered over 50 invited talks and 8 patents in the field. He is currently holder of the NSERC Chair in Design Engineering for Interdisciplinary Innovation of Medical Technologies.

This is another Seminar of the "Seminars@DEM" cycle.