Research in Action: - University of Calgary

You’ll find Dr. Nigel Shrive’s spectacularly cluttered office—every available surface holds a pile of books or
stack of paper—in the Schulich School of Engineering. But while the Killiam Memorial Chairholder teaches
in the Department of Civil Engineering and conducts research on masonry, he’s also developed an expertise
in biomechanics. These days, it is that work that has Shrive quite excited. He is hopeful that a new model
he has developed with Dr. Cy Frank and Dr. David Hart might help determine the relative influence of
mechanical and biological factors in the development of osteoarthritis.
Unpuzzling joint disease
“The model might be able to tell us what are the primary drivers [of osteoarthritis] and, therefore, what we
have to target with any therapy,” Shrive says. “It would be the first time in the world that mechanical factors
have been isolated from biological factors.” Doing so would give new insights into a complex disease. “We’ve
realized in the last couple of years that, as soon as you injure a joint, everything starts to change—all the
tissues in the joint, including those not injured,” Shrive says. When biological changes, such as inflammation,
give rise to mechanical changes, sorting through the puzzle can get very complicated.
The role of inflammation
In his team’s new model, a biological response can be triggered without changing the operational mechanics
of the joint—by essentially creating and then immediately repairing an injury in a way that restores the original
mechanics. Alternatively, to explore mechanical contributors to osteoarthritis, the joint can be altered and the
level of inflammation kept pretty much constant by using anti-inflammatory drugs.
“We can see if, with the same level of inflammation, but different mechanics, osteoarthritis develops at the same
rate,” Shrive says. While he is excited about the model, he is, of course, an engineer at heart. Everything must
be tested rigorously. “The idea is that specimens given anti-inflammatories will have way less osteoarthritis,”
Shrive says. “Who knows, maybe we’ll find out it’s not the inflammation that’s doing the damage.”
That would be an unexpected result, but it’s the sort of thing that can happen when dealing with a biological
system, which by its nature is complex. And it is outcomes like this that can make Shrive appreciate more
traditional engineering. “If you load a piece of steel, you can make it yield,” he says. “It’s not going to get any
different. It’s not going to repair itself in varying degrees depending on the genetics of the system.”
28 UofC Research in Action
Dr. Nigel Shrive is isolating
the “mechanical” from the
“biological” to understand
more about osteoarthritis.