Molecular and muscle strip mechanics in health and disease
Amanda Bianco
Project : Control of non-linear viscoelastic tissue
The Lauzon lab is developing a system that can test mechanical and contractile functionality of human or animal muscle tissues while exposed to drugs, biological mediators and/or environmental factors at relatively high-throughput level over a prolonged period of time. Essential to the autonomous operation of this device is the development of a force control scheme for the measurement of a key parameter of muscle function, namely the muscle rate of shortening. The objective of my project is to develop a force control scheme that allows for an isometrically contracted muscle tissue to be held briefly at a set force with a prescribed rise time and percent overshoot before being returned to its initial length.
