When surgeons remove an aggressive bone tumor from the pelvis, saving a patient’s life can mean sacrificing a large portion of the spine and hip. Putting that fragile structure back together in a way that will let the patient sit, stand and walk safely is one of the most difficult challenges in orthopedic oncology and requires a team of experts with highly specialized skills. Now, a new collaboration between Rice University engineers and physicians at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center is giving surgeons a powerful new way to plan those reconstructions before they ever step into the operating room. The research was recently published in the Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials.