As part of the Cambridge Center for Medical Materials, my thesis was focused on investigating the blood flow in the vertebral endplates, a thin layer of bone which exists between the intervertebral discs and the vertebrae. A micro-computed tomography (CT) technique was used, coupled with a sheep spine model to image and characterise the endplates. The novel aspect of the study was the use of samples from patients undergoing elective surgery, enabling the correlation between laboratory findings and clinical data.