Dr. Sasa Cukovic

Dr. Saša Ćuković completed his studies in Serbia. He went on to hold a Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship, which was undertaken at ETH Zurich, a DAAD grant at Technical University of Munich (Germany), an OeAD grant at TU Graz and MedUni Vienna (Austria), and was a Visiting Scientist at PoliBa (Italy), working mainly on non-invasive diagnosis of spinal deformities and CAD/CAM projects. He has received numerous scholarships and awards during his studies and professional work, such as the Mimics Innovation Award – EMEA region (1st place awarded by Materialise for a cutting-edge PhD research. Lyon, France); Ernst Mach Grant – worldwide; and a Research grant from Austrian Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy.

In February 2021 he became a CATIA Champion, which is a recognition issued by Dassault Systems (Paris, France) for long-term commitment in promoting and using the PLM System CATIA. In November 2021 he was elevated to IEEE senior member grade – a recognition from the world's largest engineering professional organization that prides itself on the advancement of technology in all fields of engineering.

His current MSCA project – ScolioSIMcall_made (From Skin to Skeleton: Revolutionary Contactless and Non-Ionizing 3D Digital Diagnosis and Monitoring of Spinal Disorders in Adolescents) – addresses adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) which represents 80% of cases of scoliosis, a medical condition in which a patient’s spine has a complex anatomical deformity from birth onwards. Existing diagnostic methods require radiographic exposure. A new generation of optical techniques that generate 3D digitalized surfaces of the patient’s back to assess the curvature of the spine and deformity progression are considered a reliable alternative. However, these digital techniques cannot estimate the internal parameters of AIS and ignore the 3D complexity of the internal spinal structure, and specifically vertebral rotation. The EU-funded ScolioSIMcall_made project proposes a markerless computer-based optical solution to generate a 3D reproduction of the patient-specific spine for diagnosis of both internal and external biomechanical features and parameters of AIS, avoiding radiographic exposures in monitoring pathological progression and therapy outcomes.