Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Education:
Ph.D., Biomedical Materials, University of London, 1997
M.S., Mechanical Engineering, West Virginia University, 1992
B.E., Mechanical Engineering, First Class Honors, Malaviya Regional Engineering College, India, 1989

Career Highlights:
Vashisth served as a pre-doctoral research fellow for five years in hard tissue mechanics at the University of London’s Interdisciplinary Research Centre (IRC) in Biomedical Materials. During his work there, he developed several testing and evaluation procedures for the biomaterials testing laboratory that achieved United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) Accreditation. After finishing his doctoral degree, Vasishth spent two years as a postdoctoral research fellow in bone biomechanics and biology at the Bone and Joint Research Center in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

Since joining the Rensselaer faculty in 1999, Vashishth has earned several distinguished awards. These honors include grants from the Whitaker Foundation (2001) and the National Institutes of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Research (2002); he also was named Outstanding Professor by the Interfraternity Greek Council (student chapter) of Rensselaer for excellence in teaching (2002), and was among the first ten recipients of Rensselaer’s School of Engineering Research Award (2003).

Vashishth regularly serves as a member of special emphasis panels for the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Research, and is a reviewer for the Health Research Board (Ireland), private foundations, and over a dozen journals in the area of mechanics and biology of musculoskeletal systems. He holds professional memberships in the European Society of Biomechanics, the Biomedical Engineering Society, and the Orthopaedic Research Society.

Research Areas:
Through cellular and tissue level studies, Vashishth’s interdisciplinary research involves identifying age-related changes in the biological and mechanical characteristics of skeletal tissues as well as developing microenvironments conducive to functional tissue engineering of bone. His research areas include biology and hard tissue mechanics, cellular control of tissue growth and development, mechanobiology of skeletal tissue regeneration, and fatigue fractures of long bones.

Vashisth is working to identify and establish mechanisms of age and diabetes-related skeletal fragility. His studies involve post-translational modification of collagenous and non-collagenous matrix proteins in bone and their influence on osteoclastic bone resorption (measured in vitro via cell-tissue culture system) and fracture properties (measured using a fracture-mechanics approach) of bone. His studies on cellular control of tissue growth and development involve the measurement of cell number, tissue size, and other histomorphometric characteristics of naturally aging human bone obtained from several different skeletal sites. He aims to establish paradigms for controls of cell population and its influence on aging and skeletal tissue regeneration. In his research into mechanobiology of skeletal tissue regeneration, Vashishth is working to develop in vitro systems to evaluate the influence of mechanical loading in directing stem cells into cells of different skeletal tissue lineages. Bone fatigue fractures research in his laboratory involves mechanical analyses of long bone loading and its influence on damage tolerance and multiaxial fracture characteristics of bone. He is working to establish the role of torsional loading in the pathogenesis of stress fracture.

His close collaborators include with the Bone and Joint Center at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis, Rensselaer’s Cellular Bioengineering Laboratory, the Orthopaedic Biomechanics Laboratory at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, the Bone and Joint Center at Albany Medical College, and the New York State Department of Public Health’s Wadsworth Center.

Selected Publications:
W. George and D. Vashishth, “The Influence of Phase Angle Between Axial and Torsional Loadings on Fatigue Fractures of Bone,” Journal of Biomechanics, in press.

D. Vashishth, “Rising Crack Growth Resistance Behavior in Cortical Bone: Implications for Toughness Measurements, Journal of Biomechanics, 37, (10), 943-946, (2004).

D. Vashishth, K.E. Tanner, and W. Bonfield, “Experimental Validation of a Microcracking-Based Toughening Mechanism for Cortical Bone,” Journal of Biomechanics, 36, (1), 121-124, (2003).

Y.N. Yeni, F.J. Hou, T. Ciarelli, D. Vashishth, and D.P. Fyhrie, “Trabecular Shear Stresses Predict In Vivo Linear Microcrack Density but not Diffuse Damage in Human Vertebral Cancellous Bone,” Annals of Biomedical Engineering, 31, 726-32, (2003).

D. Vashishth, G.J. Gibson, M.B. Schaffler, J. Kimura, and D.P. Fyhrie, “Determination of Bone Volume by Osteocyte Population,” Anatomical Record, 267, (4), 292-295, (2002).

D. Vashishth, K.E. Tanner, and W. Bonfield, “Fatigue of Cortical Bone Under Combined Axial- Torsional Loading,” Journal of Orthopaedic Research, 19, (3), 414-420, (2001).

D. Vashishth, G.J. Gibson, J.I. Khoury, C. Wilson, M.B. Schaffler, J. Kimura, and D.P. Fyhrie, “Influence of Non-Enzymatic Glycation on Biomechanical Properties of Bone,” Bone, 28, 195-201, (2001).

D. Vashishth, K.E. Tanner, and W. Bonfield, “Contribution, Development and Morphology of Microcracking in Cortical Bone During Crack Propagation,” Journal of Biomechanics, 33, 1169-1174, (2000).

D. Vashishth, M.B. Schaffler, and D.P. Fyhrie, “Osteocyte Lacunar Density in Femoral Cortical Bone Predicts the Accumulation of Microcracks with Age,” Bone, 26, (4), 375-380, (2000).

D. Vashishth, J. Koontz, S. Qiu, D. Cannon-Lundin, Y.N. Yeni, M.B. Schaffler, and D.P. Fyhrie, “In Vivo Diffuse Damage in Human Trabecular Bone, ”Bone, 26, (2), 147-152, (2000).

Contact Information:
Deepak Vashishth
(518) 276-4050
vashid@rpi.edu
http://www.eng.rpi.edu/soe/directory_faculty_details.cfm?facultyID=vashid