The Myers Lab congratulates Lei Shi on his well-deserved doctoral degree from Columbia University! Lei’s work mechanically testing and modeling the human cervix not only characterizes the equilibrium response of human cervical tissue, but also pioneers capturing its time-dependent mechanical response.

Congratulations to Myers Lab members Nicole Lee and Arielle Feder for placing in the SB3C 2021 ASME-BED Student Paper Competition! Nicole Lee tied for first place at the PhD level in the Soft Tissue Biomechanics section, and Arielle Feder got runner-up at the BS level in the Soft Tissues section. We couldn’t be more proud!

How do mechanical properties of the human uterus change throughout pregnancy, and how do they differ across uterine anatomical locations? We combine video extensometry, mechanical testing and computational modeling to explore in our recently published manuscript.

The article is written by Shuyang Fang in collaboration with Christine Hendon.

Article – Bioengineering for Women’s Health
Anisotropic Mechanical Properties of the Human Uterus Measured by Spherical Indentation

Raw data – Academic Commons
Spherical Indentation Data:
https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/d8-22r0-x041

Our new manuscript reports measurements from 2D ultrasound of uterine and cervical growth during pregnancy and a design table driven method to build patient-specific models.

The article is authored by Erin Louwagie in collaboration with Helen Feltovich at Intermountain Medicine/UoU and Timothy Hall at UW-Madison.

Article – PLOS ONE
Longitudinal ultrasonic dimensions and parametric solid models of the gravid uterus and cervix

Raw Data – Academic Commons
Ultrasound Measurements: https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/d8-g3bz-yj53
Solid Models: https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/d8-tchz-hs47
MRI Validation Models: https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/d8-gxv7-2z02

We are so proud of our undergraduate and masters level students, who recently wrapped up their summer research projects! Their final presentations were recorded and we are so excited to share!

Tara Atkinson

Tara is currently a masters student in Mechanical Engineering. Her project this summer focused on developing a parametric model of monkey uteri.

Anabella Advincula

Anabella is an incoming freshman student at Barnard College. She led a team in the Columbia University Summer Design Challenge to reimagine prenatal care for better telemedicine visits. Other members of the team were Tara Atkinson, Arielle Feder, and Imani Phillips.

Lizzie Ayton

Lizzie is an undergraduate student in Mechanical Engineering who joined the Myers lab this summer to work on finite element modeling of the rodent reproductive tract. She focused on building a parametric model of the mouse uterus and cervix.

Divya Rajasekharan & Arielle Feder

Divya and Arielle are undergraduate students in Mechanical Engineering who worked jointly this summer to build parametric patient-specific models of the uterus and cervix for late gestation. They also worked on modeling additional structures important for birthing simulations, the pelvic bone (Divya) and vaginal canal (Arielle). Their videos have been uploaded to Columbia Academic Commons, and can be found using the links below:

Late Pregnancy Uterus Model: https://doi.org/10.7916/d8-p164-vg61

Pelvic Bone and Vaginal Canal Models: https://doi.org/10.7916/d8-f3kp-e229

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

The lab is listening and learning about ways we can end racial disparities in Women’s Health. Beyond today, we aim to infuse our academic practice with these lessons and open ourselves to more listening and more action. #ShutDownSTEM #BlackLivesMatter #BlackMamasMatter

See our work featured on the “Childbirth” episode of Netflix’s Sex, Explained!

Netflix Sex, Explained Trailer

Check out recent stories about our work in the MIT Technology Review and Nova online.

Cover of MIT News Nov/Dec 2019.

Nicole Lee mechanically testing cervical tissue. Photo credit: Shuyang Fang