Engineering to improve surgery
Before joining Imperial I served my implant design apprenticeship under Mike Tuke at Finsbury Orthopaedics. During this time it was also an honour to work with the great surgeon Mike Freeman. My research is inspired by the two Mikes – to improve orthopaedic surgery with the latest engineering technology. I do this in three ways:
Firstly, the beauty of additive manufacturing is that we can use the same materials as forging/casting, but make implants from lattice structures that match the modulus of bone. This is exciting because it means after surgery, the stress/strain does not change in the surrounding bone and bone health is maintained. This research is being commercialised by OSSTEC Ltd.
Secondly, orthopaedic surgeons rely on large hammers to whack implants and broaches into the bone. We created a unique facility to study impaction and developed a powered impactor device that removes physicality of surgery, is precise and (relatively) quiet. This research was commercialised by our spin-out Additive Instruments.
Thirdly, surgery is a hugely invasive process and there is considerable scope for this to be gentler to the body in terms of removing less tissue and applying smaller forces. Applying sensors to the whole procedure allows us to perform surgery, measure motions/forces/pressures, and tweak the surgery until we get the best output. This type of work is particularly good for keyhole surgery that repairs joints before they wear out.
I am hugely grateful to the support of the wonderful NIHR, EPSRC, Wellcome Trust, Innovate UK and Renishaw plc who are currently funding all the above work.