Professor Christopher Little, BSc, BVMS, PhD
Director of the Raymond Purves Bone and Joint Research Lab at the Kolling Institute, University of Sydney, Australia

Professor Christopher Little, BSc, BVMS, PhD, is Director of the Raymond Purves Bone and Joint Research Lab at the Kolling Institute, University of Sydney, Australia. Chris is a qualified veterinarian with specialist surgery training and certification. He was awarded a PhD from the University of Sydney in 1996 and has been in full time medical research since then, completing post-doctoral Fellowships at the University of Cardiff in the UK and University of Melbourne, before being recruited to his current role in 2004.

Chris’s research focuses on defining the biochemical, cellular and molecular mechanisms of musculoskeletal (MSK) disease (in particular osteoarthritis, tendinopathy, and intervertebral disc degeneration) and how structural pathology relates to the key clinical symptoms of pain and disability. He is recognized for his expertise in pre-clinical animal models of MSK diseases, and their use in translating new knowledge of disease mechanisms into effective therapies.

His research has been funded through grants from various agencies/sectors (NHMRC, ARC, CRC, philanthropy, industry), has resulted in >200 publications, and facilitated mentoring of 24 PhDs and numerous post-doctoral Fellows. Chris is Deputy Editor of Osteoarthritis and Cartilage and sits on a number of Editorial Boards for other leading international MSK journals. He has been on the Board of Directors for a number of national and international research societies and was recently elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of NSW, an ICORS Fellow of International Orthopaedic Research and a US Orthopaedic Research Society Fellow.

Professor Ling Qin
Choh-Ming Li Professor of Orthopaedics & Traumatology      (http://www.ort.cuhk.edu.hk/staff-qinling.html)

Professor Ling QIN is Choh-Ming Li Professor of Orthopaediatrics and Traumatology and Director of CUHK SZ-HK Innovation Technology Institute and Musculoskeletal Research Laboratory of the Department of Orthopaedics & Traumatology. Professor Qin has been working on basic and translation research in orthopaedics with focus on diagnosis and pathophysiology of bone metabolic disorders and their treatment using innovative biometals as Class III medical implants over the past 30 years. Professor Qin is editor-in-chief of Journal of Orthopaedic Translation and past president of International Chinese Musculoskeletal Research Society (ICMRS). As principle investigator, Professor Qin published 9 books and over 460 SCI journal papers, including Nature Medicine, Nature Communications, Advanced Materials, Materials Today etc., with a H-index of 92. He also holds over 40 inventions or new utility patents from PRC and USA. His pioneer scientific and translational research work in developing innovative biodegradable Mg-based metals for orthopaedic applications has been highlighted in Nature and Science.

Professor QIN received many prestigious honors and awards, including Member of Academia of Europea (MAE) and Fellow of AIMBE, ICORS, ASBMR, and IUSBSE attributed to his contribution to musculoskeletal research and innovation of biomaterials for orthopaedic applications.

Associate Professor Marjolein van der Krogt
Director of the Clinical Movement Analysis Laboratory at the Amsterdam University Medical Center in The Netherlands

Marjolein van der Krogt is associate professor and director of the Clinical Movement Analysis Laboratory at the Amsterdam University Medical Center in The Netherlands. She is also president-elect of the European Society of Movement analysis in Adults and Children (ESMAC). She obtained a cum laude MSc degree in Human Movement Sciences and a PhD in Rehabilitation Medicine, focusing on musculoskeletal simulation of gait problems in children with cerebral palsy. During her postdoc period, she was a visiting scholar at Stanford University neuromuscular biomechanics lab. In her combined function as research professor and head of the clinical gait lab, she strives towards integrating scientific research and clinical care. This translational research approach helps to perform truly patient-oriented research projects and improve health care directly by research outcomes. Her research line focuses on a better understanding of movement deviations and their underlying neural and musculoskeletal impairments in children and adults with neurological disorders. To this end, she developed and applied novel technologies including predictive simulations of gait, patient-specific foot and ankle modeling, 3D-ultrasound muscle imaging, and systematic interpretation of gait analysis data. In her lecture, she will present how these technologies can help to improve diagnostics and evaluation of orthopedic surgery in pediatric populations.

Professor Massimo Sartori
Head of the Neuromuscular Robotics Chair at the University of Twente in The Netherlands

Massimo Sartori is a Full Professor and head of the Neuromuscular Robotics Chair at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, where he also directs the Neuromechanical Modelling & Engineering Lab. His research focuses on understanding how human movement emerges from the interplay between the nervous and the musculoskeletal systems. Prof. Sartori’s lab combines neural interfacing with musculoskeletal modelling, for the development of symbiotic robotic exoskeletons and bionic limbs that can restore movement following neuromuscular injuries. On these topics Massimo has contributed to the development of open-source software for musculoskeletal modelling including CEINMS, MyoSuite, MOtoNMS. Massimo has obtained several prestigious blue-sky research fundings from EU’s premiere funding agency, the European Research Council. He has created patented technology in the field of wearable sensors, exoskeletons, and bionic legs with leading companies such as OttoBock HealthCare. He currently chairs the IEEE RAS Technical Committee on BioRobotics. He is Associate Editor at the IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering. He is a member of scientific societies including: the European Society of Biomechanics, IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, IEEE International Consortium on Rehabilitation Robotics. Prof. Sartori obtained his PhD in Information Engineering (2011) from the University of Padova (Italy) and was Visiting Scholar at the University of Western Australia (WA, Australia), Griffith University (QLD, Australia) and Stanford University (CA, USA). He conducted his post-doc at the University of Göttingen (Germany) where he become Junior Research Group Leader in 2015. Since 2017 he is with the University of Twente in the Netherlands.