Stepping Stone Symposia Conference on Medical Technology ...

Dominique PIOLETTI
EPF Lausanne
Dominique.pioletti@epfl.ch
Research interests
Biomechanics, tissue engineering, orthopedics, biomaterials
Educational history
1997 Ph.D. Physics Department, EPFL, Switzerland
1992 M.Sc. Physics Department, EPFL, Switzerland
SSSTC <strong>Stepping</strong> <strong>Stone</strong> Symposium on Medical Technologies, 27–28 September 2012
Previous positions
2000–2005 Group Leader and Lecturer, Hôpital Orthopédique, CHUV
1997–1999 Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, UCSD, USA
1992–1997 Assistant and PhD Student, Biomedical Engineering Laboratory, EPFL and Hôpital Orthopédique de
la Suisse Romande
Dominique Pioletti
Biomechanical stimulus for tissue engineering and drug delivery applications in musculoskeletal
tissues
Biomechanics; bone tissue engineering; smart drug delivery
Mechanical stimulus has been identified since a long time as a key player in the adaptation of the musculo-skeletal
tissues to their particular function. The tissue differentiation has also been demonstrated to be influenced by its
local loading environment. Mechanical loading is then an intrinsic variable to be considered when new
development is proposed for treating different patho-physiological situations in the musculo-skeletal system. In
this talk, I will describe this mechanical situation in the context of tissue engineering and drug delivery system. In
particular, I will propose to make a clear distinction between: i) classical biomechanics tending to make a structural
analysis of the mechanical situation under study (e.g. bone scaffold mechanical properties), and ii) mechanotransduction
aspects tending to understand or use the mechanical stimulus for clinical application. I will give two
examples how we take advantage of this mechanical stimulation. The first example will be the effect of controlled
loading on bone formation inside polymeric scaffold and the second example will be the coupling between a
loading and a delayed drug delivery system.
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