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University of Strathclyde celebrates key role in multi-million pound medical devices research partnership

September 10, 2002

The University of Strathclyde is celebrating a DTI announcement, which gives the go-ahead for a new, multi-million pound medical devices research partnership. The Medical Devices Faraday Partnership will bring together medical engineering experts from industry and academia, with the aim of developing and commercialising medical devices and biomaterials for new and improved patient treatment. The Partnership brings together a team of six leading academic institutions and four industrial organisations with extensive medical sector experience. The University of Strathclyde is the only Scottish partner.

Medical devices encompass all medical and surgical devices which come into contact with the body, whether implantable, semi-implantable, permanent or disposable. The sector is critical to the Nation`s health and to the UK economy.

Placing the Faraday Partnership in context, Professor Trish Connolly, of the Bioengineering Unit at the University of Strathclyde, said: "We are delighted to be involved in this pioneering Faraday Partnership. The future of medical device development in the UK depends upon our ability to properly interface skills in medicine and engineering. This partnership provides a unique opportunity for an experienced team from industry and academia to adopt a multidisciplinary approach to delivering medical devices to the marketplace.

"Our expertise at Strathclyde centres around making medical devices as safe as possible for contact with the human body and developing new ways of monitoring patients at home and in the hospital environment. The Faraday partnership will therefore enable us to continue our work on novel sensor systems for medical diagnostics, where, for example, we are investigating a procedure for measuring molecules on the skin instead of taking blood samples. Strathclyde is one of the few groups in Europe working in this new area."

"As life expectancy increases for the population in general, there are incumbent requirements for greater medical support. New developments in medicine are also demanding greater technological input in areas such as drug delivery and cardiovascular devices. This in turn has increased the demand for multidisciplinary teams to work together in medical device development and testing.

"Another significant area of our expertise is in the area of biomaterials - that is those materials which need to come into blood or tissue contact - and in cell and tissue engineering. All medical device materials cause some response in the body. As the extremes of these responses in patients can be harmful, understanding and further research in biomaterials is crucial to the improvement of medical care. The new partnership will bring us together with other experts in the field of biomaterials, namely the Universities of Cambridge, London`s Queen Mary College, Nottingham, Sheffield and Leeds, and make this group more accessible to UK industry."

Strathclyde, University of