Summary
Dr Burak Temelkuran has returned to academia after a 15-year period in the medical industry, and he is currently developing the fiber technology that he discovered as an early career researcher, which became the sole product of a successful MIT spin-off company OmniGuide Surgical Inc. He is a Lecturer at the Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction and conducts his research at the Hamlyn Centre for Robotic Surgery. His research focuses on the application of multi-material fibres in medicine: Functional fibres for endoluminal interventions, fibre robots, laser delivery mechanisms, laser-tissue interactions of surgical lasers, and their therapeutic and diagnostic applications. He has published over 50 papers and patents, and his recent 8 ICL patents focusing on the applications of multimaterial fibres for medical devices are on their path to commercialisation.
Dr Temelkuran received his MS (1996) and PhD (2000) degrees from the Department of Physics at Bilkent University, Turkey. As a postdoctoral researcher at MIT (2000-2002), Dr Temelkuran has contributed to the discovery of the 1D omnidirectional reflecting fiber. His research led to a number of foundational publications, in prestigious journals such as Nature and Science, that pioneered the field of multi-material fibres. He led the technology transfer process of this fibre to a start-up company, and he was actively present at every step of the translation of his invention from laboratory to operating theatres. His invention has been used in over 400,000 laser surgeries to date, mostly helping cancer patients.
Dr Temelkuran has joined the Hamlyn Centre in 2016 and the Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction in 2021. His research is targeting unmet needs in medicine, with his expertise in the field of multi-material fibres and with his 15 years of experience in the medical industry bridging engineering and medical sciences.
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Publications
Journals
Leber A, Dong C, Laperrousaz S, et al., 2023, Highly integrated multi-material fibers for soft robotics, Advanced Science, Vol:10, ISSN:2198-3844, Pages:1-10
Bautista-Salinas D, Abdelaziz MEMK, Temelkuran B, et al., 2021, Towards a Functional Atraumatic Self-Shaping Cochlear Implant, Macromolecular Materials and Engineering, Vol:307, ISSN:1438-7492
Abdelaziz MEMK, Tian L, Hamady M, et al., 2021, X-ray to MR: the progress of flexible instruments for endovascular navigation, Progress in Biomedical Engineering, Vol:3, ISSN:2516-1091, Pages:1-38
Gao A, Liu N, Shen M, et al., 2020, Laser-profiled continuum robot with integrated tension sensing for simultaneous shape and tip force estimation, Soft Robotics, Vol:7, ISSN:2169-5172, Pages:421-443
Keshavarz M, Wales DJ, Seichepine F, et al., 2020, Induced neural stem cell differentiation on a drawn fiber scaffold-toward peripheral nerve regeneration, Biomedical Materials, Vol:15, ISSN:1748-6041