Hans Dunning, Ir.

About me

In 2017 I graduated from the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, with a master degree in Biomedical Engineering. I did my internships in industry, where I was part of the R&D team designing a multifocal pressure sensing catheter. My master’s project was performed at the department of maxillofacial surgery of the Radboudumc and was titled: Design of a ‘one-shape-fits-all’ osseointegrated transtibial implant.
I currently work as a Ph.D. student at the Orthopaedic Research Lab.

My research

Musculoskeletal disorders are a common cause of pain and disability affecting millions of people around the world. The orthopaedics department of the Radboudumc focuses on congenital deformities of the knee. Within this spectrum patellofemoral instability due to trochlear deformity and tubercle mal-positions are common. The instability causes patellar dislocations, which is the most common acute knee disorder in children and adolescents, with negative effect on quality of life.

In my Ph.D. project musculoskeletal dynamic models based on real time dynamic CT scans are used to optimize pre-operative surgical planning for patellofemoral surgery. The goal is to optimize stability and minimize patellofemoral contact forces. With the aid of surgical navigation tools and cutting guides the pre-operative planning can be executed with high accuracy. This will hopefully lead to more satisfied patients, with less morbidities such as osteoarthritis along the way.

In a previous project I designed, prototyped and tested a surgical tool for minimal invasive curettage of metastatic bone lesions. With the pilot data from experiments with this tool, I wrote a grant proposal for the Dutch Cancer Society.

Example of a musculoskeletal dynamic knee model; Hans Dunning | Orthopaedic Research Laboratory Nijmegen, radboudumc, Radboud university medical centre
Figure 1: Example of a musculoskeletal dynamic knee model.