Congratulations Alice: Many congratulations to Alice who just won the  IMechE Heathcare Awards best project prize for 2017. She gave a super presentation of her work at the IMechE headquarters on Tuesday. We look forward to completing and publishing the work over the summer Alice! (June 2017)

Congratulations Jacky: Well done to Jacky who just had the first paper from his PhD published A2B-Miktoarm Glycopolymer Fibers and Their Interactions with Tenocytes in Bioconjugate Chemistry. Jacky is working with Dr Becer and Prof Screen, designing new polymers we can use in tendon repair. (June 2017)

Welcome to Isabelle: We are delighted to welcome Isabelle, who will be working with us over the summer  as part of her Masters degree at Une Ecole de l'Institut Mines-Telecom in  Saint-Etienne. We hope you enjoy your time here Isabelle! (June 2017)

Welcome to Tony: We are delighted to welcome Dr Wing Keung Cheung (Tony), who has joined as a PDRA on an HBLB funded project to develop imaging tools to investigate tendon mechanics in horses. We hope you enjoy working with the team Tony! (May 2017)

Farewell to Dharmesh: We all enjoyed an evening out to say goodbye to Dharmesh and wish him luck for his next challenge. We are sad to see you go Dharmesh! (May 2017)

Screen team netball win!: We all enjoyed another sports afternoon with Martin Knight's group to celebrate the start of the Easter holidays, and were delighted to achieve a second netball win - well done team! (April 2017)

Professor Screen talks at the International Olympic Committee Conference: Professor Screen joined a team to talk about tendinopathy - causes and treatment at the IOC conference in Monaco.  (March 2017)

Professor Screen gives talk at EUROMech: Professor Screen is giving a keynote talk at the EUROMech conference in Germany this month, outlining our work around tendon structure-function mechanics. (Feb 2017)

Congratulations to Dr Udeze-Jyambere!: Many congratulations to Princess, who successfully defended her PhD thesis on 9th February. We all went out to celebrate on Friday evening and now look forward to graduation! Princess's thesis was entitled: The effects of loading frequency on tenocyte metabolism. (Feb 2017)

Dan Rowson's paper makes JOR Cover: Congratulations to Dan whose paper on the primary cilia in tendon made the front cover of the latest edition of the Journal of Orthopaedic Research. (Jan 2017)

You can find the full article here.

Christmas Party: We all enjoyed our Christmas sports day and party with Martin Knight's research team, and are pleased to report a resounding win in the netball this year! (Dec 2016)

PhD Position Available: We have a PhD position available, using ultrasound imaging to investigate human tendon mechanics in greater detail. We are looking for someone with a background in biomechanics or medical physics (ultrasound). Link to apply: https://www.sems.qmul.ac.uk/research/studentships/?sid=255

Most highly cited paper award: Our paper "Microstructural stress relaxation mechanics in functionally different tendons" published in Med Eng Physics 2013 is is one of their top five most highly cited papers during 2014 and 2015!  (Dec 2016)

PDRA Position Available: We have a new two year PDRA position available, looking to develop ultrasound imaging to investigate tendon mechanics in greater detail. We need someone with a good background in medical physics and ultrasound imaging. Link to apply: https://webapps2.is.qmul.ac.uk/jobs/job.action?jobRef=QMUL10442 (Dec 2016)

Farewell to Chavaunne: We are all sad to say goodbye to Chavaunne, but delighted for her success, achieving an Arthritis Research UK Fellowship based at the Royal Veterinary College, in which she will focus on interfascicular matrix cells. Well done Chavaunne and Good Luck! (Nov 2016)

TV Appearances: Over the summer, we helped film an episode of the award winning CBBC show “Operation Ouch!” In which they were investigating just how amazingly strong tendons are.

We had a great fun performing the experiments. Here is a picture we took with the presenters, Drs Chris and Xand van Tulleken.

The show is airing on Monday 31st October at 5pm. You can find more details about the series here too: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2016/operation-ouch  (October 2016)

Graduation Day! Congratulations Dharmesh - we all enjoyed watching you graduate on Friday! (August 2016)

Summer Away Day: We teamed up with Martin Knight's research group again for an away day in North London, involving outdoor adventure at Go Ape! We had great weather to enjoy a picnic after all the activity - well done to everyone for braving the heights! (July 2016)

Group attends SB3C2016: A number of us attended the SB3C conference in Washington this summer, presenting studies relating to tendon healthy mechanics and the behaviour of tendon cells under different physiologically relevant types of loading. (July 2016)

Papers Published: We have had a paper pulished in Acta Biomaterialia describing further the fatigue resistance of the IFM in energy storing tendons. The elastic behaviour of the IFM appears critical for tendon healthy function. We have also published a fun letter in the Journal of Biomechanics considering tendon nomenclature which we hope will engage the community in further discussion. (June 2016)

Professor Screen Interviewed for a Women in Engineering blog: Professor Screen recently talked to Elsevier about her research and why she chose engineering as a career: https://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences/engineering-and-technology (June 2016)

Dr Thorpe and Professor Birch talking at a special BORS/Instron mechanical loading event: Instron are running a special session at an upcoming BORS event, looking at mechanical testing of soft tissues. Dr Thorpe and Professor Birch will do a joint presentation, concerning the difficulties in testing tendon and some of the various solutions we have developed. (April 2016)

Professor Screen talking at the IOC Conference next year: The international Olympic Committee are holding their 2016 conference in Monaco, and Professor Screen will be talking as part of an exciting session looking at tendinopathy management: http://www.ioc-preventionconference.org  Symposium 12: Prevention of tendinopathy; how to play the game?  (March 2016)

Abstracts accepted for SB3C2016: Congratulations to Chavaunne, Princess, Dan and Dharmesh, all of whom have had their abstracts accepted for presentation at the 2016 Summer Biomechanics, Bioengineering and Biotransport Conference in Washington DC. Chavaunne has an oral presentation looking at fatigue properties of the IFM, and we have posters covering tenocyte mechanotransduction behaviour under both 10Hz loading and stress deprivation, as well as on human tendon mechanics. (March 2016)

Presentations at BSMB: Congratulations to  Marta and Dharmesh who have both had their abstracts accepted for oral presentation at the British Society of Matrix Biology meeting in Chester. We covered some of our latest data about IFM function in the human Achilles tendon and how elastin is highly localised to the IFM to facilitate fascicle sliding. They are pictured below standing by their posters (March 2016).

Journal of Anatomy paper published: We have just published another article further describing the compositional differences between positional and energy storing tendons, highlighting the increased levels of lubricin and elastin in the IFM to enable fascicle sliding. Congratulations to our two summer students, Kabelan and Jade for their first publication! (Feb 2016)

Chavaunne T Thorpe, Kabelan J Karunaseelan, Jade Ng Chieng Hin, Graham P Riley, Helen L Birch, Peter D Clegg and Hazel R C Screen (2016) Distribution of proteins within different compartments of tendon varies according to tendon  type. J Anatomy

First tendon cilia paper from our group published: We have just published a paper looking at the effects of stress deprivation on cilia length in both the IFM and within fascicles. We have shown for the first time how the IFM is more susceptible to degeneration with stress deprivation and how the cilia are more responsive to these changes. (Feb 2016)

Rowson D, Knight MM, Screen HRC (2016) Zonal variation in primary cilia elongation correlates with localised biomechanical degradation in stress deprived tendon.  J Orthop Res. doi: 10.1002/jor.23229

Scientific Reports Article Published: We have just had a paper accepted in the Nature Journal "Scientific Reports": Chavaunne Thorpe, Mandy Peffers, Deborah Simpson, Elizabeth Halliwell, Hazel Screen, and Peter Clegg (2016) Anatomical heterogeneity of tendon: Fascicular and interfascicular tendon compartments have distinct proteomic composition. (February 2016)

It's attracted some media interest in Phys Soc: http://phys.org/news/2016-02-scientists-hurdles-champion-racehorses.html and in horse and hound: http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/news/tendon-research-liverpool-and-queen-mary-university-525793

Congratulations Dr Dharmesh Patel!: Well done to Dharmesh who successfully defended his thesis "A novel fibre composite system to investigate tenocyte metabolism under physiological and pathological loading conditions" funded by Arthritis Research UK. Both examiners commented on how well he performed during his viva, and we were all delighted to take Dharmesh out for a celebratory drink at the end! (October 2015)

Congratulations to Dan Rowson: Well done to Dan, who won a prize for the best poster at our conference Advances in Tendon Research: From Bench to Bedside, for his research looking at the primary cilia in tendon. (September 2015)

Conference Success!: Thanks to everyone in the organising group for all your hard work - our conference "Advances in Tendon Research: From Bench to Bedside" was a great success.

We held the conference at QMUL on 7-8 September, and welcomed over 100 delegates from academic, industrial and clinical backgrounds. With four keynote talks, workshops and a range of open sessions and posters, there was a great mix of basic and translational science. (September 2015)

Welcome to Beryl & Martha: Beryl and Martha have joined us from Uganda for a few weeks as summer student, and will be working with the group on tendon mechanics. (July 2015)

Conference Keynote: Dr Screen has just returned from the International Society of Biomechanics conference in Glasgow, where she gave a keynote lecture about tissue mechanics, including an overview of some of the groups work. (July 2015)

Welcome to Jade and Kabelan: Both have joined us for project work over the summer. We hope they enjoy working with our group (June 2015)

Two more papers accepted: We have recently had two more papers accepted. One on tendon micromechanics and the fatigue behaviour of the IFM, and one using microdialysis to investigate how shockwave therapy affects cell metabolism in the Achilles. (April 2015)

Thorpe CT, Godinho MSC, Riley GP, Birch HL, Clegg PD, Screen HRC. (2015) The interfascicular matrix enables fascicle sliding and recovery in tendon, and behaves more elastically in energy storing tendons. JMBBM.

Waugh CM, Morrissey D, Jones E, Riley GP, Langberg H, Screen HRC (2015) In vivo biological response to extracorporeal shockwave therapy in human tendinopathy. Eur Cell Mats

Conference Attendance:  We attended the International Symposium on Ligaments & Tendons and the Orthopaedic Research Society conference in Las Vegas, enjoying some great science at both events. Well done to Dharmesh and Chavaunne on excellent presentations.  To celebrate, we enjoyed two days in Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park after the conference! (March 2015)

More Conference Talks Success: Congratulations to Dharmesh Patel and Chavaunne Thorpe, who have both had abstracts accepted for oral presentations at the International Symposium on Ligaments & Tendons this April in Las Vegas. Chavaunne has also secured an oral presentation at the International Society of Biomechanics in Glasgow in July this year (Feb 2015)

Two New Journal of Orthopaedic Research Papers Published: We have recently had two papers accepted in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research, following the successful New Frontiers in Tendon Research held in New York last September (Jan 2015)

Spiesz EM, Thorpe CT, Riley GP, Birch HL, Clegg PD, Screen HRC (2015) Tendon extracellular matrix damage, degradation and inflammation in response to in-vitro overload exercise. Journal of Orthopaedic Research

Screen HRC, Birk DE, Kadler KE, Ramirez F, Young MF (2015) Functional Extracellular Matrix. Journal of Orthopaedic Research

Science & Engineering Faculty Celebration Day: We started the year with the Science & Engineering Faculty Celebration Day and were very excited to meet Professor Bonfield, who presented Marta with a certificate in recognition of her being the very first Bonfield Scholar at QMUL. We all had a very enjoyable evening.

SJMSS Article Published: We've just published an article in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports investigating the inflammatory response of tendons to overload injury. We have shown that the interfascicular matrix is constantly turning over faster than the rest of the tendon matrix. However, in response to overload, the whole tendon shows inflammation and a degenerative response.

C. T. Thorpe, S. Chaudhry, I. I. Lei, A. Varone, G. P. Riley, H. L. Birch, P. D. Clegg and H. R. C. Screen (2015) Tendon overload results in alterations in cell shape and increased markers of inflammation and matrix degradation. Article first published online: 30 DEC 2014 | DOI: 10.1111/sms.12333

New Advisory Board Positions: Dr Screen has been invited to join the advisory board for the next annual conferences of both the International Symposium on Ligaments & Tendons and the British Society for Strain Measurements, making 2015 a busy year! (Nov 2014)

ORS Abstracts Accepted: Congratulations to Dr Chavaunne Thorpe and Dr Ewa Spiesz, who have both had abstracts accepted for the Orthopaedic Research Society conference next year. (Nov 2014)

EVJ Review Article Published: We've just published an article in the Equine Vet Journal, providing a complete overview of all our work looking at how equine energy storing tendons function effectively. (Nov 2014)

Thorpe CT, Spiesz EM, Chaudhry S, Screen HRC, Clegg PD (2014) Science in Brief: Recent Advances into Understanding Tendon Function and Injury Risk

Welcome to Renjie Liu (Jacky): We welcome Jacky, who has come to join Dr Remzi Becer and Dr Hazel Screen's research groups to complete a PhD investigating new polymers for tendon repair. (Oct 2014)

London Matrix Symposium Talk: Dr Screen gave a talk at the recent London Matrix Symposium meeting at the Royal Vet College, discussing our work looking at structure-function relationships in tissues. (Oct 2014)

New Frontiers in Tendon Research Conference: Dr Screen has just returned from an NIH and ORS sponsored tendon conference in New York, looking at shaping the future of our field. As part of the team running focus groups at the conference, she will now be involved in writing a review article on the topic. (Sept 2014)

Arthritis Research UK: Congratulations to Dharmesh Patel, who gave a talk on his latest research to the Oliver Bird-Arthritis Research UK PhD conference at Kings College London, receiving some excellent feedback. Thank you to E. Stamatiades at Kings College for providing a super photo of the event!

International Scientific Tendinopathy Symposium: Congratulations to Dr Chavaunne Thorpe, Dr Ewa Spiesz and  Daniel Rowson, who all achieved oral presentation opportunities at the ISTS conference in Oxford. (Sept 2014) 

World Congress of Biomechanics: Dr Screen attended the WCB in Boston, and gave two invited talks covering some of our latest research concerning tendon mechanics and injury. (July 2014)

Farewell to Mathilde: We were sad to say goodbye to Mathilde as she finished her MSc project, but we are looknig forward to publishing her data soon. We all went out to Hyde park for a leaving party. (July 2014)

Research Away Day: We teamed up with Martin Knight's group for an away day at Box Hill in Surrey. We all enjoyed a fun day out, and even managed to star in a film by local producers about the Box Hill area! (June 2014)

Congratuations to Marta Godhino: Marta has successfully been awarded the new Bonfield PhD scholarship to begin her PhD with our group in September, looking at "The Role of Elastin in Tendon Function" (April 2014).

Acta Biomaterialia Paper published: We've just published a paper showing the fatigue loading of tendon fascicles not only causes their specialised spring-like features to breakdown, but that this relates to how well the fascicle is able to recoil after loading. Good recoil is important for healthy tendon function, and we have shown that ability to recoil gets worse with ageing. These findings may help to explain the mechanisms leading to tendon injury (April 2014).

C.T. Thorpe, G.P. Riley, H.L.Birch, P.D.Clegg, H.R.C.Screen (2014) Effect of fatigue loading on structure and functional behaviour of fascicles from energy-storing tendons. Acta Biomater. 2014 Apr 16. pii: S1742-7061(14)00165-2. doi: 10.1016/j.actbio.2014.04.008.

Welcome to Mathilde Lestoille: We welcome Mathilde, who has come to join our group for the next 4 months, working towards her Masters in Engineering from Ecole Polytechnique. She will be working on characterising the mechanics in different types of tendon fascicles (April 2014).

Professor Jill Cook Visits: We were delighted to welcome Jill Cook to a joint research group meeting between ourselves and Dylan Morrissey's team. We had a great morning of presentations, learning about each others latest research and stimulating interesting conversation (March 2014).

Journal Royal Society Interface published today: We've just published a paper describing more of the specialist mechanisms by which energy storing tendons function and damage. We've shown the fascicles are coiled like springs to be fatigue resistance but repetitve loading causes them to unwind and becone less efficient. We've seen unwinding happens with age, which may explain the age related increase in tendon injury. (January 2014)

C.T. Thorpe, G.P. Riley, H.L.Birch, P.D.Clegg, H.R.C.Screen (2014) Fascicles from energy storing tendons show an age-specific response to cyclic fatiue loading. J Roy Soc Int

Welcome to Dr Ewa Spiesz! We welcome Ewa who has just started with the group on a three year Arthritis Research UK funded project to learn more about tendon injury processes. She will be looking at the matrix material holding the tendon together, as we think this might be the key component controlling healthy tendon function. We hope you enjoy working with us Ewa. (January 2014)

Christmas Party: We joined up with Martin Knight's group for an afternoon of sports before our Christmas party this year. Fun had by all....and it even made some room for the turkey! (December 2013)

Dr Chavaunne Thorpe on the HBLB racehorse health website: The Horcerace Betting Levy Board have funded Chavaunne's work for a number of years, specifically funding her prize winning research at the recent ISL&T conference. They are as pleased about the award as we are, and she is featured in their latest news article: http://racehorsehealth.hblb.org.uk/p/press-articles_1.html (November 2013)

Dr Screen Interviewed by Arthritis Research UK: Dr Screen was interviewed by Arthritis Research UK to tell their readers more about the research she is doing and how Arthritis Research UK are supporting her work. The article (some of wihch is below) is on their website in full. (October 2013)

Dr Chavaunne Thorpe wins the Savio Woo Young Researcher Award: Congratulations to Chavaunne for winning this highly prestigious prize, awarded at the International Symposium on Ligaments and Tendons, for her work on fatigue in energy storing tendons. Here she is being presented with her certificate and cheque by Professor Savio L-Y Woo, and Professor Giuliano Cerulli.  (October 2013)

J Eng Med Paper published: We've just published a paper describing how different types of tendon damage. Our data suggests that more highly loaded tendons may have special mechanisms to allow them to still work effectively, even when the matrix is disrupted. This could be really important for understanding how tendons resist getting damaged and allow us to see why some people get tendon damage so much more easily than others. This would provide us with the information we need to create better and more effective treatments to prevent tendon injuries.

Shepherd, J; Legerlotz, K; Demirci, T; Klemt, C; Riley, GP; Screen, HRC. (2013) Functionally distinct tendon fascicles exhibit different creep and stress relaxation behaviour. J Eng Med  (September 2013)

Congratulations to Dr Anssari-Benham! Well done to Afshin ( a former PhD student in our group) who has recently started an academic post at the University of Portsmouth. Good luck Afshin!  (September 2013)

Welcome to Daniel and Marta! We're delighted to welcome Daniel Rowson and Marta Godhino to the group. Daniel is beginning a PhD with Professor Knight and Dr Screen, looking at the role of primary cilia in tendon and tendinopathy. Marta is a Biomedical Engineering MSc ERASMUS student with us from Portugal for a twelve month research project. We wish them both luck with their projects! (September 2013)

Congratulations to Dr Chaudhry! Saira won a prize for the "Best Oral Presentation" in the QM in Motion Conference today, covering some of her PhD work relating to measuring tendon stiffness in vivo. (September 2013)

BSMB Cardiff: SEMS had an excellent turnout at the BSMB conference in Cardiff this year, where Dr Screen gave an invited talk, covering some of the recent work from the group. With such great weather, we and some of Prof Knight's group made the most of the mountains on the way home too! (September 2013)

Farewell to Dr Jennifer Shepherd! Jenny is off to a postdoctoral position in Cambridge, and we all wish her well. As part of her leaving party, we went to the British Beer festival at Earls Court to wave her off with beer and pie! (August 2013)

Race win for the group: We teamed up with Martin Knight's research group for an away day in the Chilterns, enjoying sunshine, a picnic and a game of rounders. Although we lost the rounders, we stormed to a win in the relay race! (July 2013)

Saira Chaudhry receives her PhD:  Well done to Dr Chaudhry! Saira has successfully passed her PhD looking at the biomechanics of tendon during eccentric and concentric training regimes, supervised by Hazel Screen and Dylan Morrissey (July 2013).

Two review Papers Published in IJEP: Chavaunne Thorpe and Jennifer Shepherd both have review papers in the latest edition if the International Journal of Experimental Pathology. These are part of a tendon special, based on the recent BSMB tendinopathy conference organised by Graham Riley (June 2013).