Congrats to (Dr.) Luke Johnson on a Successful PhD Defense!

Huge congratulations to Luke (Now Dr. Johnson!) on successfully completing his PhD thesis! 🎓✨

Luke joined our lab in 2019 after earning his Engineering undergraduate degree from Cambridge University, co-supervised by Dr. David Wilson at the Centre for Aging SMART and Dr. Kishore Mulpuri from the Hippy Lab.

This summer, he’s heading to Boston to begin an exciting postdoctoral fellowship the Institute for Mechanobiology at Northeastern University!

The aim of Luke’s PhD thesis was to measure factors that might affect long-term hip health in people who had Perthes’ disease as children. Perthes’ is a rare condition that can permanently change the shape of the hip joint.

After healing from Perthes’, hips that look less round on X-rays are much more likely to have problems like pain and arthritis later in life, but we don’t know exactly what causes these problems. Luke used advanced medical images and computer models to better understand the shape of the hip after Perthes’ and how shape changes can damage cartilage in the hip, causing pain and arthritis.  

Luke’s work helps pave the way for better early detection and treatment strategies!

We’re so proud of you, Luke! Wishing you all the best in your next chapter!