On July 11th 2013, Prof.Yang Xia from Oakland University, invited by Prof. Xin Zhou visited WIPM and delivered a lecture entitled “Microscopic MRI (μMRI) and its Applications in Physics, Engineering, and Biomedicine”. Researches and students from WIPM attended the report actively.

At first, Prof. Xia introduced the principle of microscopic MRI (μMRI). Through a lot of interesting microscopic MR images of the cucumber, the pea and the spider ,he brought us to the microscopic world and some structures or tissues which can’t be obtained by optical imaging have been shown. Then he detailedly reported the study of osteoarthritis and articular cartilage degradation, including the early stages of cartilage degradation biomarkers, adjustment of articular cartilage under load, the clinical diagnosis of osteoarthritis with physical and biological physics methods. Articular cartilage is a special dense connective tissue called collagen fibers with smooth surface, which plays an important role in the joint activities, can reduce the friction between two adjacent bones and buffer vibration generated by movements. In the report, Professor Xia also introduced different microscopic image techniques (uMRI, PLM, TEM, FTIRI, Micro-CT) , the biochemical and biomechanical detection methods to explore the structure of collagen fibers. These researches provided good pre-clinical studies for the diagnosis and treatment of disease about cartilage.

Prof. Xia has been engaged in physics research since 1986 at Massey University in New Zealand, guided by the famous physicist of New Zealand and laureate of international ampere--Sir Paul T. Callaghan. He obtained PhD in 1992. From 1992 to 1994,he has done his postdoctoral research in Biotechnology Center of Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Since 1994, he has been a professor of physics in department of physics of Oakland University and is a tenured professor now.