£1.2 million will allow Birmingham University and Imperial College London to address the neglect of time in medical device design. 

The University of Birmingham and Imperial College London have launched a project to shake up medical device engineering by incorporating a fourth dimension – time – into design.

The 4D Health Tech initiative addresses a gap in medical device design: neglect of time-dependent changes in the human body. Traditional medical devices fail to account for growth, movement, and tissue regeneration or degeneration, which leads to compromised functionality and shortened lifespan.

For example, paediatric implants do not grow with the child and must be regularly changed. Stoma bags leak because they do not fully conform to skin folds. Bone implants do not predictably degrade as surrounding tissues regenerate.

“Our bodies change over time as we grow, move and regenerate, but products designed to replace or repair our bodies typically neglect the dimension of time, compromising their function and lifespan,” said Sophie Fox, associate professor in healthcare technologies at the University of Birmingham. 

Ambitious and thoughtful

The three-year project is backed by £1.2 million of UKRI Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) funding and is intended to create a network connecting academics, businesses, clinicians, patients and policymakers. 

The project aims to promote the use of materials that degrade predictably and promote faster healing and combine this with expertise in cutting edge automated design, advanced manufacturing processes and patient specific pre-clinical testing to create better medical devices that cater to diverse populations.

The project is led by Andrew Dove, Sophie Cox, Michael Bryant, Samantha Cruz Rivera and Sarah Hughes at the University of Birmingham and by Robert Hewson and Connor Myant at Imperial. 

“Together, these researchers present a hugely ambitious, thoughtful response to the economic, environmental and social challenges we all face,” said Jane Nicholson, executive director for research at EPSRC.