SC#5 – IRL/LIA iLab-Spine

Research Works

Part of the Spinal Cord project is conducted within the French-Canadian iLab-Spine International Research Lab (IRL) / Laboratoire International Associé (LIA).

Created in 2013 thanks to an A*midex international grant support, the iLab-Spine has been labeled by the CNRS in 2015 (renewal in 2019).
The iLab-Spine gathers 8 institutions including CNRS (centre national de la recherche scientifique), Aix-Marseille University, IFSTTAR (institut français des sciences et technologies des transports, de l’aménagement et des réseaux), APHM (assistance publique – hôpitaux de marseille), ETSM (école de technologie supérieure de Montréal), EPM (école polytechnique de Montréal), Hôpital du Sacré-Cœur and Hôpital Sainte-Justine.

Research activities, objectives and missions

The iLab-Spine research activities cover 3 main topics: knowledge & innovations in spine biomechanics and imaging (WP1) ; understanding, prevention & treatment of spinal trauma (WP2) and spinal pathologies (WP3).

Our main objectives are to better understand the pathophysiological mechanisms and to improve the treatment and protection of the spine and spinal cord in the context of traumas and degenerative pathologies using multidisciplinary approaches based on biomechanics, multimodal magnetic resonance imaging and modelling.

Our missions are to pool our research efforts, resources and expertise to generate knowledge in the field of biomechanics and spinal imaging, to apply this knowledge to solve or innovate in the fields of health, transportation, sports and life sciences, and to train the next generation of expert staff and researchers.

Project coordinators:

Virginie CALLOT (CNRS/AMU/APHM) – CRMBM-CEMEREM
Pierre-Jean ARNOUX (IFSTTAR/AMU) – Laboratoire de Biomécanique Appliquée
Carl-Eric AUBIN (EPM/HSJ) – Chaire Medtronics
Yvan PETIT (ETS/HSC) – Chaire Traumatologie Spinale

Key-words : Spine, Spinal Cord, Imaging, MRI, Biomechanics, Spine Model for Safety and surgery (SM2S), Finite Element Modeling, Multi-scale models, Simulation, Spinal Cord Injury