Yichen Huang​

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Project title

Stability of the glenohumeral joint after anatomic and reverse total shoulder arthroplasty

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Supervisors

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Associate Professor David Ackland, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, The University of Melbourne

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Professor Peter Lee, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, The University of Melbourne

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Dr Dale Robinson, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, The University of Melbourne

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Yichen has developed an interest in engineering long time ago. He graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree (Engineering) at the South China University of Technology, China. During those four years, he was always enthusiastic in participating in all kinds of engineering projects. During the last two years of his undergraduate study, he completed a National Innovation Project of China with his schoolmates. With the desire to learn more in engineering, he came to the University of Melbourne in 2017 to study for a Master’s Degree in engineering. During the two years of his Master’s Degree study, he was exposed to more advanced knowledge and techniques in engineering field. He was especially interested in the application of engineering tools in solving biomedical problems. Therefore, aiming to explore more in this area, he made a decision to undertake a PhD research project and joined A/Prof David Ackland’s team in the Department of Biomedical Engineering.

 

Yichen’s PhD project aims to investigate the instability complication associated with shoulder arthroplasty. Shoulder arthroplasty is a surgical procedure in which all or part of the glenohumeral joint is replaced by a prosthetic implant. Anatomical total shoulder arthroplasty (TSA) and reverse total shoulder arthroplasty (RSA) are the most common shoulder arthroplasty procedures. However, instability still occurs at a significant rate after TSA and RSA. Once instability occurs, revision arthroplasty is often required, bringing more pain to the patients. Yichen’s project involves developing and validating computational models of the native shoulder and the shoulder after TSA or RSA and using these models to evaluate the influence of several design variables on the stability of glenohumeral joint after shoulder arthroplasty. Hopefully this project will improve our understanding of shoulder arthroplasty and lead to better implant design.