Bone regeneration: mechanobiology and future bone graft alternatives
7th September 2026, 19:00 to 20:00 BST
Overview
Fracture healing is guided by the local mechanical conditions acting in the fracture gap. Although this relationship has been known for decades, the underlying biological and molecular mechanisms are still not fully understood, and thus their potential in fostering healing is not entirely utilised in clinical practice. In this webinar, the speakers will provide comprehensive insights into the fracture healing process from a mechanobiological perspective. Special focus will be placed on recent findings and novel mechanical (active fixation systems) and molecular techniques (spatial transcriptomics) used to study the biomechanical impact on fracture healing and future bone graft alternatives.
Aims
This webinar aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of how local mechanical conditions within the fracture gap influence biological and molecular processes during fracture healing, with emphasis on recent advances in mechanobiological research and future bone graft alternatives.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this webinar, the participants will acquire basic knowledge about:
- Key mechanobiological principles governing fracture healing.
- Novel mechanical techniques, including active fixation approaches, used to investigate and modulate the biomechanical environment during fracture healing;
- Novel molecular techniques, such as spatial transcriptomics, that provide insights into the spatial and molecular regulation of fracture repair.
Panellists
Our panellists include:
Esther Wehrle, Dr med vet, PhD
Focus Area Leader Bone Biology. AO Research Institute Davos (ARI)
Esther Wehrle is leading the Bone Biology Focus Area at the AO Research Institute Davos (ARI) and is a lecturer at ETH Zurich. With her team at ARI, she develops and employs multimodal and individualized approaches (e.g. in vivo models, omics, imaging) focusing on mechanobiology and immunomodulation to understand and target impaired bone healing conditions. Her background is in veterinary medicine (LMU Munich) and biomedical engineering (TU Munich). After working in a referral clinic for small animals in the UK, she focused on molecular biological methods, mechanobiology and bone healing during doctoral projects in Munich (Dr. med. vet.) and Ulm (Dr. rer. nat.). After Postdoc and team lead positions at the Laboratory for Bone Biomechanics at ETH Zurich, she joined ARI in 2022, providing a clinically oriented collaborative environment for continuing and advancing the translationally targeted multidisciplinary research on bone healing.
Jan Barcik, PhD
Project Leader Technology Development. AO Research Institute Davos (ARI).
Jan Barcik is a Project Leader in the Biomedical Development Program at the AO Research Institute Davos, where he specializes in in vivo studies investigating the impact of mechanical loading on fracture healing. He holds a PhD in Materials Science from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, along with Master’s and Engineer’s degrees in Mechatronics Engineering from AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow, Poland. He is a member of the European Orthopaedic Research Society and serves as a reviewer for several journals in the field.
CPD
1 Hour
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Recording
A recording of the webinar will be made available on this page in the days following the live broadcast.
