2022/11/11 | Events | Biomechanics

Multifaceted future day at the ARTORG

A lot was to discover on yesterday's future day at the ARTORG Center: organs-on-chip, fluid mechanics for heart valves, biomechanics of bone (fractures), manufacturing of medtech components in the workshop. 32 schoolgirls from Bern were given the opportunity to try out these areas at our two sites on Murtenstrasse and sitem-insel. The girls showed great interest and in some cases drew parallels to other engineering disciplines such as aviation or the automotive industry.

While the brazing irons ran hot and metal shavings whirred around in the Mechanical Design and Production workshop, the Organs-on-Chip Technologies lab was sterile with gowns and gloves to keep the self-produced microchips as clean as possible. Only in this way can human mini-organs be grown on them, which can replace animal testing in research into new drugs and provide more precise information about their effectiveness in humans.

In Cardiovascular Engineering the girls experimented with water, when they timed the flow rates through various types of artificial heart valves in an experiment and tinkered with the optimal future valve design in a virtual wind tunnel. Musculoskeletal Biomechanics showed them the basic principles of bone biomechanics and used micro-CT imaging to track down frequent radius fractures after falls. In the process, bones were diligently produced from the 3D printer as research subjects.

We hope that everyone involved was able to take away something exciting and we are already looking forward to next year!