Medical Engineering
In June 2009, the Wellcome Trust announced that it would, in partnership with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), fund four new Centres of Excellence in Medical Engineering in the UK. The intent is that each centre will provide an environment for mathematics, physical science, engineering and medical research to come together, to encourage exploratory research and the translation of that research into specific product developments of benefit to healthcare.
The scheme was launched in March 2008 with 45 preliminary applications received, totalling a request for funding in excess of £500 million. These were triaged in July 2008 to nine invited applications from which four awards were made in March 2009.
Four interdisciplinary research teams - at Imperial College London, King's College London, the University of Leeds and the University of Oxford - will receive a combined total of £41 million over the next five years. The funding will help these teams to invent high-tech solutions to medical challenges, potentially improving thousands of patients' lives.
The initiative offered a unique opportunity to bring engineers and medical scientists together to drive forward this field of research, to see how different fields approach medical challenges and, that by working as a cohesive team, they can address these more robustly.
The aim is to conduct world-class clinical trials to show the benefit of new discoveries in imaging technology that the Centre will produce.
Medical imaging has the capacity to give patients access to new tools for earlier and more precise diagnoses of cancer and heart disease, better targeted therapies, less invasive surgery and improved techniques for rebuilding tissue after surgery. Medical engineering research will build on existing strengths in the clinical areas of cardiovascular, cancer and neurology while focusing on a well-developed expertise in medical imaging. Strong engineering will help to standardise imaging techniques and analysis, and enable the effective translation of research developments into effective, definitive clinical trials.
The new Centre will bring together high-quality engineers, physicists, computer scientists, chemists and clinicians to develop new clinical applications of imaging to improve lives. The team, led by Professor Reza Razavi, will also address the challenge of rolling out new developments in imaging across the NHS.
However, it has become clear that long-term conditions such as asthma, diabetes and cancer are best managed by taking into account how the individual is responding to their particular therapy. At the Oxford Medical Engineering Centre, Professor Lionel Tarassenko and colleagues will be developing techniques and strategies to precisely measure individuals' response to their condition and therapies, and use those measurements to adjust and improve the way the person is being treated. This approach could have real impact on survival rates and improve the quality of life for people living with long-term conditions, from birth through to old age.
Professor Lionel Tarassenko and colleagues will be developing techniques and strategies to precisely measure individuals' response to their condition and therapies, and use those measurements to adjust and improve the way the person is being treated. This approach could have real impact on survival rates and improve the quality of life for people living with long-term conditions, from birth to old age.
It is the most common cause of chronic pain and costs the country an estimated £5.5 billion every year directly and indirectly. The Centre at Imperial College London will develop technologies to improve the lives of patients with osteoarthritis. The team will create the next generation of hip and knee replacement implants that will last longer and require less invasive surgery to fit. Tissue engineering will also contribute hugely in this area, using patients' own cells to grow new cartilage for osteoarthritic knees. A better understanding of the disease will also lead to new technologies to diagnose and treat osteoarthritis at a much earlier stage.
The Centre, led by Professor Ross Ethier, will create products that can better detect and monitor osteoarthritis, that improve clinical intervention in the repair of joints damaged by the disease and that create new paradigms for rehabilitation of patients with osteoarthritis. It will bring together engineers, surgeons, rehabilitation therapists, chemists, imaging scientists, computer scientists, materials scientists and cell biologists in order to create new products that bring real benefits to patients.
The Wellcome EPSRC Leeds Medical Engineering Centre (WELMEC) are looking at how to help the skeleton, muscles and cardiovascular system support our bodies as we get older, through improved prosthetic implants and technologies to help our tissues regenerate.
The team is also looking to understand the process of degeneration so its early stages can be accurately diagnosed and appropriate and timely interventions can be delivered. The Centre's work is all driven by the concept of 50 more years after 50 - making our second 50 years as healthy, comfortable and active as our first.
WELMEC, directed by Professor John Fisher, will be enhanced by other funding sources, such as an EPSRC-funded Innovation and Knowledge Centre, which will take products into clinical trials, providing support all along the development pipeline.
The initiative is now closed; however, if you have any queries regarding medical engineering please contact:
Dr Nicola Bailey
Business Analyst, Technology Transfer
Wellcome Trust
Gibbs Building
215 Euston Road
London NW1 2BE
T +44 (0)20 7611 8632
F +44 (0)20 7611 8857
E
n.bailey@wellcome.ac.uk
Dr John Wand
Head of Nano and Next Generation Healthcare
EPSRC
Polaris House
North Star Avenue
Swindon SN2 1ET
T +44 (0)1793 444 335
F +44 (0)1793 444 547
E
john.wand@epsrc.ac.uk