Join us TOMORROW, Wednesday October 14th, 2015 for our talk with Dr. Blemker , Associate Professor at the Department Bioengineering, Mechanical &Aerospace Engineering and Orthopedic Surgery, University of Virginia! Coffee and cookies are served.
For visitors from outside Mason - Parking is best in the Shenandoah Parking Garage ( Bldg. 43 on the campus map). The seminar is in the Krasnow Institute of Advanced Studies (Bldg. 32), Room 229:  http://info.gmu.edu/Maps/FairfaxMap14lttrClr

Bioengineering Seminar
October 14th, 2015 from 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Krasnow Institute, Room 229
Speaker: Silvia Salinas Blemker, PhD - Associate Professor, Department of Bioengineering, Mechanical&Aerospace Engineering and Orthopedic Surgery, University of Virginia
Seminar title: Multiscale computational modeling of muscle as a paradigm for treatment discovery for a wide range of clinical problems

Biography
Silvia Salinas Blemker joined the UVA faculty in January of 2006.  She obtained her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University and her Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University. Before joining the faculty at UVa, Dr. Blemker worked as a post-doctoral Research Associate at Stanford University's National Center for Biomedical Computation.  At UVA, she now leads the Multi-scale Mechanophysiology Mechanics Lab ("M3 Lab") in BME.  The M3 lab group develops advanced multi-scale computational and experimental techniques study muscle biomechanics and physiology, and they are currently applying these techniques to variety of areas, including speech disorders, movement disorders, vision impairments, and muscular dystrophies.  The M3 lab's research is funded by the NIH, NSF, the UVA-Coulter Translational Research Partnership, and the Hartwell Foundation.
Abstract
What do speech disorders, presbyopia, cerebral palsy, and muscular dystrophies all have in common? Other than being health conditions that affect millions of people, these clinical problems all involve impairment in skeletal muscle. Skeletal muscles are extraordinarily adapted motors that enable us to perform many important functions, from walking to sight to speech.  How is each muscle's structure adapted to perform its specialized function in the human body?  How can a maladapted muscle be restored to perform its specific function? The goal of the Multi-Scale Muscle Mechanophysiology ("M3") Lab's research is to use multi-scale computational and experimental approaches in order to answer the above questions and ultimately lead to improved treatments for muscle-related clinical problems.  In this presentation, I will describe these approaches and describe some recent examples of how computational models of muscle have led to clinically relevant insights.

Claudia Borke
Academic Program Coordinator
Volgenau School of Engineering, Department of Bioengineering
3800 Nguyen Engineering Building, 1G5
4400 University Drive
Fairfax, VA 22030
Phone: (703) 993-4190
Fax: (703) 993-2077