Damien Lacroix
Professor Mechanobiology, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Damien Lacroix has a first degree in Mechanical Engineering from the National Institute of Applied Science (INSA Lyon, France) and a PhD in Biomechanics from Trinity College Dublin. After a post-doc in 2001 in Toulouse (France) for Smith and Nephew at the Purpan Hospital, he was awarded a Marie-Curie TMR EU fellowship in 2002 and a Ramon y Cajal senior fellowship in 2004 at the Technical University of Catalonia (Spain). In 2008 he was appointed Group Leader of Biomechanics and Mechanobiology at the Institute of Bioengineering of Catalonia (Spain). Damien joined the Department in 2012 when he took a Chair in Biomedical Engineering within the INSIGNEO research institute.
Professor Lacroix's research covers bone mechanobiology (bone tissue engineering, bone distraction, fracture healing) and spine biomechanics (mechanobiology of disc degeneration, disc angiogenesis, disc implant analysis). The focus of his research group is the study of the effect of mechanical stimuli on biological response. The group's objective is to make scientific advancements in simulations of in vitro and in vivo biomechanics and mechanobiology and in experimental in vitro mechanobiology. The current focus of the group is mainly on the development of simulations in spine biomechanics, tissue engineering and cell mechanics. These numerical simulations based on the finite element method are complemented with in vitro tests using bioreactors and microfluid chambers.