LaTIM - INSERM UMR 1101 (Laboratory of Medical Image Processing)
IMT Atlantique
UBO (University of Western Brittany)

PhD position:

Pre-operative planning and intra-operative navigation for knee osteoarthritis targeted treatment

Keywords: Medical Image Analysis, Automatic segmentation, Registration, Computer Vision

Project: MagOA - Magnetically Targeted Delivery of MSCs loaded Microrobots for OsteoArthritis

Context

Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is a leading cause of persistent knee pain and disability. It occurs most commonly in people aged 50 and older, with effects generally worsening over time. Surgical approaches (such as bone grafts or knee replacement) are costly and invasive, therefore developing treatments aimed at reducing pain and retarding deterioration is essential. In recent years, cell-based therapy for cartilage repair has made notable technological advances and has become a promising treatment that avoids heavy bone grafts in mobile knee joints. This procedure can be accomplished through intra-articular injection of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) performed under arthroscopy to allow cartilage regeneration. However, the efficiency of current MSC-based therapy is limited by the lack of targeting accuracy, the reduced field of view of the arthroscopic images and the low survivability of MSCs, which thus requires a large number of cells for intra-articular injection [1]. It is therefore important to improve the accuracy of intra-articular injections of MSCs on the damaged cartilage area, in order to ensure the clinical effectiveness of this treatment. Magnetically controlled microrobots have been used as carriers to transport functional cells to attach, migrate, proliferate, differentiate, and subsequently form 3D living human tissues in vivo [2]. Hence, the MagOA project aims to improve the lack of targeting efficiency for the present MSC-based therapy, by developing a magnetically actuated microrobotic system, and perform targeted MSC delivery using multimodal imaging. As part of this research project, our partner the PRISM laboratory from INSA Centre Val de Loire already developed a first electromagnetic actuation (EMA) system. This non-invasive solution consists of injecting magnetic microparticles functionalized with these MSCs to control their displacement in real time towards the damaged cartilage using a magnetic robotic system.

This PhD offer will take up one of the MagOA main challenges: to develop a navigation solution fusing the pre-operative arthroscanner and intra-operative arthroscopic images to visualize and track the MSCs towards the damaged cartilage. It will include the developments of

1. a patient specific knee model, including the automatic segmentation of the knee bones and cartilage and mapping of the damaged cartilage,
2. a preoperative planning and computer assisted simulation allowing the computation of the optimal MSCs trajectory, as well as
3. an intra-operative assistance solution based on the arthroscopic images registration.

Profile

• Master or Engineering degree in Computer Science / Computer Vision / Biomedical engineering / Applied mathematics.
• C++/Python programming skills and experience with 3D modelling / Image processing / Machine learning.
• Autonomy, open-mindedness, and motivation
• Good English and communication skills
• Good reporting/documentation skills.
• Interest for medical applications

Conditions

Start date: Fall 2024

Duration: 3 years

Supervisors: A. GUEZOU-PHILIPPE, associate professor, IMT Atlantique, G. DARDENNE, research scientist, INSERM.

Environment

Localization: LATIM INSERM UMR 1101 – University Hospital of Brest – 2, avenue Foch – 29200 BREST – France

Born from the complementarity between the field of health and communication sciences, the LaTIM is a research lab which leads multidisciplinary research driven by scientists, engineers, and physicians from the University of Brest, IMT Atlantique, INSERM and the University Hospital of Brest. Medical information is at the heart of our research projects; being by nature multimodal, complex, heterogeneous, shared and distributed, it is integrated into methodological solutions and transferred into the clinical community with the sole aim of improving the medical benefit.

The work will be conducted in close collaboration with orthopaedic surgeons from the Hospital of Brest.

Application

Send your CV, motivation letter and academic transcripts to: aziliz.guezou-philippe@imt-atlantique.fr and guillaume.dardenne@inserm.fr

References

[1] A. Goldberg, K. Mitchell, J. Soans, L. Kim, R. Zaidi, “The use of mesenchymal stem cells for cartilage repair and regeneration: A systematic review”. J. Orthop. Surg. Res. 12, 39 (2017).
[2] J. Li, X. Li, T. Luo, R. Wang, C. Liu, S. Chen, D. Li, J. Yue, S.-h. Cheng, D. Sun, “Development of a magnetic microrobot for carrying and delivering targeted cells”. Sci. Robot. 3, eaat8829 (2018).