A LOOK AT CHLOÉ'S BACKGROUND
After graduating as an engineer in mechanics and material processes from École Centrale de Nantes (France), Chloé Techens specialized in biomechanics with a Master's degree in medical engineering at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden) in 2018. During her studies, she grew an interest for orthopaedics that she pursued during her PhD studies in spine surgery as part of the SPINNER project at the University of Bologna. After several publications in peer-reviewed journals, she graduated in Health Technologies in 2022 and shifted to microscale biomechanics, studying cellular mechanoregulation at Ecole des Mines of Saint Etienne through several projects including QUMIN.
CHLOÉ'S MOTIVATION FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
During my PhD thesis, I implemented Digital Image Correlation at the mesoscale to better assess the local mechanics of the spine. This experience convinced me of the benefits of non-invasive and continuous experimental methods to investigate living tissue biomechanics and paved the way to this postdoctoral fellowship with Manutech-SLEIGHT where I am developing a benchmark material for the measurement of cellular traction forces using volumetric correlation. The designed protocol will be used to investigate the mechanoregulation of smooth muscle cells at the subsecond resolution, and improve digital volume correlation at the microscopic scale by designing a marker-free, microstructured hydrogel.
