News

Congrats to our lab members for presenting at the 2026 Orthopaedic Research Society (ORS) Annual Meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina!

Haoyu gave a podium presentation on his work, “Synovial Fluid Delays Delamination Wear in Immature Bovine Cartilage Under Pure Cyclical Compressive Loading,” presenting compelling evidence that synovial fluid protects cartilage from fatigue failure under dynamic compression, independent of its lubricating effects.

Sarah presented a poster on her computational biomechanics study, “Sex-difference in Thumb Carpometacarpal Joint Contact Pressure: A Computational…

MBL celebrated a successful year with the annual holiday party alongside the Soft Tissue Lab at a local restaurant, Bar 314. Looking forward to a fruitful upcoming year!

Congrats to our lab members for presenting at the 2025 Summer Bioengineering Conference hosted by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico! 

Sarah gave a podium presentation about her computational modeling work, 'Novel Application of Bendable Osteochondral Allografts in
Carpometacarpal Osteoarthritis Treatment.'

Haoyu also gave a podium presentation covering a novel experimental method, 'Using Gravitational Permeation to Measure Tissue Hydraulic
Permeability at Low Pressures and High Fluid Fluxes.'

Dr. Ateshian also took the stage at the Bed Rock concert and…

Congrats to our lab members for presenting at the 2024 Summer Biomechanics, Bioengineering, and Biotransport Conference in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. 

CV gave a podium presentation on human wear titled "The Protective Effect of Synovial Fluid Against Cartilage Fatigue Wear Is Concentration Dependent" which sparked dialogue amongst labs studying cartilage lubrication and wear. 

Katie presented on "Machining Living Osteochondral Allografts for Joint Resurfacing In A Canine Patellofemoral
Joint Model", summarizing her incredible thesis work establishing a method to machine live…

Vince successfully defended his thesis titled "Physiologic investigations of cartilage fatigue failure and a laser technique for inducing collagen crosslinking for wear resistance." Vince's knowledge, presence and army of undergrads will sorely be missed in the MBL lab, but we're looking forward to hearing about his new postdoc at HSS! Congrats Vince!

Katie successfully defended her thesis titled "Aseptic Machining of Live Bendable Osteochondral Allografts for Articular Surface Remodeling." We will miss her endless knowledge on everything from birds to bendable allografts, but we are so proud and can't wait to see what she accomplishes next in her postdoc uptown with Dr. Joanna Smeeton! Congrats Katie!

Congrats to the whole lab for presenting at the 2023 Summer Biomechanics, Bioengineering, and Biotransport Conference in Vail, Colorado. 

CV gave a podium presentation on human wear titled "Synovial Fluid Provides A Protective Effect In Articular Cartilage Fatigue Failure," which sparked dialogue amongst labs studying cartilage lubrication and wear. This was Rafi's first conference, and he presented on "Thermodynamics of Phase Transformation of Water: Theory and Experiments," providing experimental validation for a novel thermodynamic framework for phase transformations. 

Katie…

Courtney successfully defended her thesis titled "Analysis of bendable osteochondral allograft treatment and investigations of articular cartilage wear mechanics." Courtney's expertise and presence will sorely be missed in the MBL lab, but we're looking forward to all of her accomplishments ahead. Congrats Courtney!

Congrats to Courtney and Katie for giving poster presentations at the 2023 Orthopaedic Research Society Conference in Dallas, Texas.

Courtney presented her work on fatigue failure in bovine cartilage titled "Articular cartilage wear is caused by cyclic compressive stresses and not by frictional sliding."  Katie presented two different projects titled “Maintaining Chondrocyte Viability in the Process of Bending Osteochondral Allografts” and “Bendable Osteochondral Allografts For Patellar Resurfacing: A Cadaveric Analysis of Congruence”.  Both posters were well received and led…

MBL celebrates a successful year with an annual holiday party along with the Soft Tissue Lab and Cell Lab at a local restaurant, V & T. Some of the most sought after gifts included a signed copy of Crying in H Mart, a Paint by Number kit, and a dinosaur sweater. 

Kim published a first-author paper titled Superficial zone chondrocytes can get compacted under physiological loading: A multiscale finite element analysis in Acta Biomaterialia. This paper uses computational modeling to investigate significant intracellular fluid volume loss as a mechanical explanation for the vulnerability of superficial zone cells to death under normal activities like walking or standing.

MBL is excited to announce that we have a new student joining us! Rafi Kepecs graduated with a Mechanical Engineering degree from Cooper Union and is starting his Ph.D. here at Columbia. Welcome, Rafi!