• Question: are heart vavles and things like that an area of research in engineering or robotics

    Asked by Reece.C to Dominic, Maedeh, Matthew, Matt, Monica on 9 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Matthew Oldfield

      Matthew Oldfield answered on 9 Mar 2016:

      Hi. Yes. I have seen some very interesting presentations looking at the way that heart valves can be repaired. Our research team doesn’t do any engineering on the heart at the moment though.

      There are medical robots that can crawl across the surface of the heart but these are not so much to treat valves. The robot is called the heartlander if you want to look it up online. There is also research done on the design of devices that can be inserted into arteries and fed into the heart from as far away as the groin. The kind of research medical roboticists do is linked to the tool that is at the end of the catheter and fed into the heart. They have to be very carefully designed.

    • Photo: Monica Rozeik

      Monica Rozeik answered on 9 Mar 2016:

      Hi Reece, the design of heart valves is an area of biomedical engineering because we research the best shape for an artificial valve, the materials we can use, and look at blood flow using computer modelling.

      Robotics can be used in some types of surgery such as in the heart or the knee to assist surgeons. That’s known as robotic assisted surgery. The robots can do all the cuts to the heart with a surgeon sitting at a computer to guide the robot.

    • Photo: Matthew Round

      Matthew Round answered on 10 Mar 2016:

      One of the coolest things our hospital was part of was a clinical trial set up by an engineer with no medical experience. He had a life limiting / threatening condition called Marfans Syndrome and he used engineering principles to come up with a solution for a life threatening symptom of his illness. The Aorta (main artery in the body) can swell up and burst in Marfans syndrome sufferers.

      His name is Tal Golesworthy and he is an inspiration to me and I think he shows how many engineering principles can be applied to all sort of industries including heart valves and vessels. More on his story is below.

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-24524027

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