Kunal Sharma will defend his thesis "Tendon Biomechanics: Characterizing hierarchical loading and mineralization during healing through advanced synchrotron techniques" 

Link to thesis in LU Research Portal.

Over the past 50 years, the number of tendon ruptures has been increasing. Ruptures may be traumatic, or as a response to long term tendinopathy including e.g. inflammation, altered structure and composition of the tendon. Tendons are primarily made up of water and load bearing collagen molecules that hierarchically assemble into fibrils, aggregate into fibres, that combine into fascicles and eventually make up the entire tendon. Their assembly is crucial for the tissue's mechanical properties. Tendon’s response to loading is governed by the structural rearrangement of collagen, which has been investigated at many length scales independently, but rarely simultaneously. Furthermore, after rupture, the tendon healing process is long and complex, and the tissue never fully regains the intact mechanical properties. One challenge during the healing process is formation of heterotopic ossifications, which result in pain and discomfort. However, the understanding of how and why these heterotopic ossifications form is very limited. This work highlights the power of high spatio-temporal X-ray techniques and the importance of further developing methods that allow for simultaneous applications of multiple techniques to understand the tissue strain partitioning in response to loading, and tissue characterization as a tool for understanding the mechanisms behind heterotopic ossification in soft tendon tissue.