Participants

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Dr Saša Ćuković, MSCA Fellow

Principal investigator

Dr Saša Ćuković is scientific associate at the Institute for Information Technologies (IIT) at University of Kragujevac Serbia (UniKg). Currently he is involved in research project “Application of Biomedical Engineering in Preclinical and Clinical Practice” (III41007) financed by Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of Republic of Serbia. He was Swiss Government Scholarship holder at ETH Zurich, DAAD grant holder at Technical University of Munich (Germany), and OeAD grant holder at TU Graz and MedUni Vienna (Austria) working on non-invasive diagnosis of spinal deformities. His main research interests include CAD/CAM systems, reverse engineering and noninvasive 3D reconstruction and modeling in engineering and medicine, augmented reality and computer vision. He has authored/co-authored 4 books and more than 70 papers.

Contact:
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology – ETH Zurich
Leopold-Ruzicka-Weg
8093 Zurich, Switzerland
Phone: +381641571996
E-mail: sasa.cukovic@hest.ethz.ch

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Prof. Dr William Taylor

host supervisor

Prof. Dr William R. Taylor, Professor of Movement Biomechanics within the Institute for Biomechanics (IfB) at ETH Zurich (ETHZ), Switzerland. He has been Vice-Director (2013–2015) and Director (2015–2017) of the IfB. Prof Taylor has almost 20 years of experience in musculoskeletal and clinical research as well as medical device development, with a focus on the assessment of function in patients, movement science and medical engineering. He has hosted over 8 visiting senior researchers, as well as supervised 9 post-doctoral fellows, over 25 PhD students and over 80 MSc projects. He currently supervises 14 PhD candidates. Prof. Taylor has a proven track record in the acquisition of financial support, having obtained over 17,500,000 EUR in competitive third-party funding from industry, national and international funding agencies, including being PI in several EU FP6/FP7 projects (e.g. MXL, VPHOP, DeSSoS, NanoDiaRa). His group has had considerable experience investigating spinal biomechanics, specifically using non-invasive techniques (e.g. Open MRI, VICON motion capture system, etc.) to quantify the degree and range of motion of AIS deformity in both static and dynamic scenarios. Here, data capture within clinical settings is enhanced using e.g. novel simulation methods, to also allow the disease progression to be monitored. These studies have led to a well-established collaboration with the UKBB and other hospitals affiliated to ETH, industry and leading international groups at several European and overseas universities. He is the author/co-author of over 150 peer-reviewed articles in leading journals (Google Scholar: >5500 citations, h-index: 40), 11 chapters, >200 peer-reviewed conference abstracts, and two registered patents. He has served as Treasurer and Vice-President of the European Society of Biomechanics, Ad Hoc reviewer and member of the editorial board of several leading journals.

Contact:
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology – ETH Zurich
Leopold-Ruzicka-Weg
8093 Zurich, Switzerland
Phone: +41 44 633 0595
E-mail: bt@ethz.ch

Clinical Partners

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Dr Christoph Heidt

Clinical advisor

Dr. Christoph Heidt, consultant pediatric orthopedic surgeon at the Children’s University Clinic Basel (UKBB) and medical advisor at the Clinical Evidence Center at the AO Foundation Zurich/Davos. He obtained his medical degree in Germany and France, early developing an interest in research and spending one year at the Charité Berlin Germany conducting lab-based research acquiring his doctoral thesis. He started his orthopedic formation in Bern Switzerland and continued working in Melbourne Australia at the Royal Children’s Hospital, as well as at the University Children’s Hospital Zurich and the Orthopedic University Clinic Balgrist Zurich. Since 2018, his main clinical work is in Basel Switzerland. He has published several peer-review articles on various aspects of pediatric orthopedic surgery, with a special interest in spine, pediatric sports, injury prevention and motion analysis.

Contact:
Pediatric Orthopedic Department, University Children’s Hospital Basel,
Spitalstrasse 33,
4056 Basel, Switzerland
Clinical Evidence Center, AO Foundation, Stettbach/Zurich, Switzerland
E-mail: Christoph.heidt@ukbb.ch , Christoph.heidt@aofoundation.org

External Partners

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Prof. Dr Vanja Luković

External collaborator

Dr Vanja Luković is Assistant Professor at Faculty of Technical Sciences Cacak (FTS), University of Kragujevac (UniKg), Serbia. She obtained her MA of Electrical Engineering at Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Belgrade in 2007 and received her PhD of technical sciences at Faculty of Technical Science Cacak in 2015. Since 2001 she has worked at Faculty of Technical Sciences Cacak. Currently she is involved in research project “Application of Biomedical Engineering in Preclinical and Clinical Practice” (III41007) financed by Ministry of education, science and technological development of Republic of Serbia. Her main research interests include digital circuits, intelligent systems and ontologies, informational systems and object orienting programing in C++, C# and Java. She has authored/co-authored more than 50 papers.

Contact:
University of Kragujevac, Faculty of Technical Sciences
Svetog Save 65
32000 Cacak, Serbia
Phone: +381642721063
E-mail: vanja.lukovic@ftn.kg.ac.rs


Hosts:

Funding:

Partners:

ScolioSIM

Swiss Swiss Federal Institute of Technology – ETH Zurich

Institute for Biomechanics – IfB

Leopold-Ruzicka-Weg, 8049 Zürich, Switzerland


scoliosim@scukovic.com