Medical Related Work
School of Engineering (non-WMG)
Dr Evor Hines
11th March 2009
Outline of talk
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Introduction
Summary of staff and areas of medical interest
Summary of Evor Hines’s work
Other matters
Conclusions
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Introduction
• Some 50 academic staff
• Our research groups:
- Civil Engineering
- Electronics, Power & Sensors
- Fluid Dynamics
- Information & Communication Technologies
- Sustainable Energy Engineering & Design
- Systems, Measurement & Modelling
• Some 25 staff involved in medical related
work across the groups
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Medical related work – Engineering …
• Jonathan Seville - Pharmaceutical manufacturing
• Peter Bryanston-Cross - Ophthalmic research
• Mike Chappell - Simulation tool (software and
physical models) for diagnosis and treatment of
diseases that affect human motion.
• Yunfei Chen - Wireless communication e.g. heart
rate / temperature monitoring via sensors rather than
wires
• Derek Chetwynd - Surface characterisation for
biomedical implants
• Yongmann Chung - Computational modelling –
currently conducting work on the spread of MRSA in4
hospitals
… Medical related work – Engineering …
• Marina Cole - Sensors/Electronic Noses
• Joanna Collingwood
- Neurodegenerative disorders, including
Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
- The altered states of metal ions in the disease
process, and associated opportunities (including
imaging) for early detection and diagnosis
• James Covington - Artificial olfactory systems.
Micro-fluidic devices. Bio-compatible/degradable
material for medical implants
• Neil Evans - Systems modelling including
diseases, antibodies, dialysis
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… Medical related work – Engineering …
• Julian Gardner - Microsensors and microactuators in
medicine including olfaction, gustation and touch.
Applications include detecting bacterial infection in
urine, blood, saliva, breath, skin etc
• Roger Green - Diabetes sensor design
• Keith Godfrey - Pharmacokinetic modelling
• Daciana Iliescu - Bone investigation using optical
detection e.g. fractures, healing, osteoporosis, skin
diagnostics
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… Medical related work – Engineering …
• Igor Khovanov
- Early detection of diseases and better
assessment of the effect of treatment via noninvasive measurements and analysis of
physiological signals
- Heart rate variability via characterization and
modelling cardio-respiratory interaction in health
and diseases
- Developing methods to control complex
dynamics in cardiac tissue for the next generation
of defibrillators and pacemakers
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… Medical related work – Engineering …
• Wanda Lewis
- Role of principal stress in tissue formation in
biological development and disease involving
connective tissue, as in wound and fracture
healing, blood clot formation, and in tumour
growth.
- Form-finding of orthopaedic fixations and
implants developed/optimised (more compliant)
plate and screw forms that would ensure sufficient
flexibility/stiffness to aid healing.
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… Medical related work – Engineering …
• Shengcai Li - Use of cavitation effect for kidney
stone treatment and gene/drug delivery for e.g.
cancerous and vascular diseases.
• Xianping Liu - Surface characterisation – self
cleaning surfaces, touch/feel devices.
• Duncan Lockerby - Fluid dynamics => modelling
of spinal conditions
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… Medical related work – Engineering …
• Ken Mao
- Finite element method (FEM) to facilitate early insight
into product performance for medical devices such as
total hip replacement, examine the interaction between
the implant and the femur, reducing design time and
increasing patient comfort and satisfaction.
- Applicable to biomedical devices (stents catheters,
heart valves; infusers and surgical and measuring
devices) orthopaedic devices (dental implants, artificial
knees, hips, etc, braces).
- Biomechanic devices (supports/braces motion and
structural analysis; human tissue response, injury
prediction).
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- Pharmaceuticals (processing; packaging).
… Medical related work – Engineering …
• Richard Staunton
- 3-D Endoscopy providing images and measurements in real
time
- Automatic two-view breast cancer screening
- Automatic melanoma detection that uses image processing
to measure boundary irregularity
• Nigel Stocks - Sensory neural coding and aging healthcare
applications
• Tardi Tjahjadi
- Image processing, both 2-D/3-D, including application in
motion estimation and object tracking.
- Work to enhance X-ray micro-tomographs and texture
analysis of sonograms in chronic inflammations of thyroid
gland
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Evor Hines’s work
Intelligent Systems (Computational Intelligence/Soft Computing)
Synthesis of Fuzzy, AI, Neuro, and GA/GP
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Evor Hines’s work
• Medical imaging – brain scans, lung scintigrams, nuclear
medicine;
• Developing low-cost remote access computer-assisted
teaching package for kidney dialysis;
• Medical electronic nose applications – bacteria detection;
• Prediction of health from breath samples;
• Multi channel Brain Computer Interface (BCI) and
prediction of dynamic functional links in human cortical
activity associated with cognitive control processes;
• Analysis of data from e.g.: type 2 diabetes, non-specific low
back pain patients, identifying trend of patient-centredness
in the consultation: 1991 – 2005;
• Development of decision support system, e.g. for an
anaesthetist;
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Evor Hines’s work
• Serious Games in Healthcare; PADtric: Mobile learning
for Doctors;
• Classification of tracheal-bronchial and coronary
dysfunction through cardiovascular auscultation;
• Telehealth/E-Health work on remote diagnosis from real
time multi-sensor data;
• Data mining/knowledge extraction/data fusion;
• Detection of files of suicidal patients and suicidal profiles;
• Studying the relationship between air pollution and
asthma-related emergency room visits;
• Monitoring patient awareness states via EEG signals
during anaesthesia trials.
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Other
• MSc in Advanced Biomedical Engineering
• Project work via: BEng/MEng, MSc or PhD
students
• Projects funding by e.g.: URSS, IAS, DTCs,
and other normal routes
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Conclusions:
• Some 50% of research staff across
Engineering are interested in medical related
work
• Hence there are a lot of existing projects in
Engineering
• A range of opportunities:
- some established work with obvious
applications areas;
- some novel ideas looking to find
applications
• We are very keen to extend our areas of
collaboration
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Thank you.
Any questions?
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