Stephen Cowin, Ph.D.

Preventing bone deterioration is a critical aspect of combating osteoporosis, improving bone implants, and even making long-term space flight possible, such as voyages to Mars and beyond. On April 9, noted biomedical researcher Stephen C. Cowin will describe a promising model for studying nutrient transport from the vascular system to bone tissue, transport that has a direct bearing on the prevention of bone loss.

Cowin’s presentation, “Interstitial Flow in the Hierarchical Pore Space Architecture of Bone Tissue,” is the 2014 Elsevier Distinguished Lecture sponsored by Elsevier and the NJIT Granular Science Laboratory. Professor Cowin will speak on April 9 from 2:30 to 4:00 p.m. in Room 1100 of the Guttenberg Information Technologies Center on the NJIT campus. The presentation is open to faculty, staff and students from all Newark-area colleges.
The model for poroelastic materials that Corwin will discuss is applicable to the problem of determining how cyclic mechanical loading and changes in blood pressure affect the exchange of pore fluid and nutrients between the vascular system and the lacunar-canalicular network that brings fluid to cells deep in bone tissue. Understanding this interstitial flow is, in turn, basic to understanding mechanotransduction in bone tissue, the process by which physical forces are converted into biochemical signals which then influence cellular responses. Mechanotransduction has a crucial role in bone repair and regeneration.