About
Dr Bram G Sengers is an Associate Professor in Bioengineering within Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of Southampton.
"My research focuses on computational modelling of complex biological problems, such as nutrient/drug transfer in the placenta and how to promote bone and cartilage regeneration."
Bram is based in Bioengineering within Engineering Sciences. His research is highly multidisciplinary and carried out in close collaboration with experimental groups in the Faculty of Medicine in Southampton.
Research
Research groups
Current research
Dr Sengers is interested in combining biological experiments with advanced engineering methods to understand better complex biological systems and inform medical treatment.
Specific interests include:
- Placental nutrient transport and membrane kinetics (how do drugs, or nutrients such as amino acids get from the mother to the fetus and how does transport work as an integrated system).
- Improving tissue regeneration strategies for bone and cartilage (how can we combine cells with biomaterials to functionally repair damaged tissue);
- Cell ingrowth in complex porous biomaterials for tissue repair (how do cells populate porous implants, how do they form new tissue and how to make this strong enough);
- Nutrient transport and cellular metabolism in tissue engineered constructs (making sure cells have enough to eat for constructs of clinically relevant size);
Techniques used in his research projects integrate specifically designed placental perfusion and cell culture experiments with computational approaches, custom finite element methods, microscopy, micro CT and image analysis.
Research projects
Active projects
Completed projects
Publications
Biography
Bram received and MSc (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering from Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands in 2000, developing multi-scale finite element models for studying muscle cell damage. He continued in Eindhoven to obtain a PhD on computational modelling for cartilage tissue engineering in 2005. Moving to Southampton, he joined the Bone and Joint Research Group at the Faculty of Medicine as a postdoctoral research fellow, gaining hands-on expertise in tissue culture working on cell ingrowth for bone repair. In 2009 he was appointment lecturer in the Bioengineering Group within the Faculty of Engineering and the Environment in Southampton.
Prizes
- Assessing murine intracortical vascular network in Paget's disease of bone (2018)