Biomedical Engineering Simulation and Testing Lab

Companies:

• Aber Shock
• Airbus
• Boston Scientific
• Corryn
• Flexicare
• 3DLifePrints / Insight Surgery
• Olympus Surgical Ltd. / ATL Technology
• ProColl
• Radnor Range
• UKAEA

Health boards: 

• Swansea Bay
• Cwm Taf
• Hywel Da

National Facilities:

• Diamond Light Source
• SPring-8

• Valve Imaging in Pulsatile Flows to Evaluate Engineering Design, working with Boston Scientific to deliver novel measurements to characterise the biomechanics of heart valves.
• EPSRC DTP PhD with Boston Scientific on Fluid-Structure Interaction Measurements and Modelling of Replacement Heart Valves.
• i.Biomedical Engineering: Fully Funded Swansea and Boston Scientific Ltd PhD Scholarship: Bioprosthetic Design Evaluation Through Experimental-Computational Techniques (RS592) - Swansea University
• EPSRC iCASE PhD with Airbus on Digital Image Correlation Measurements at Cryogenic Temperatures. Biomedical Engineering: Fully Funded EPSRC iCASE and Airbus Operations Ltd PhD Scholarship: Digital Image Correlation for Mechanical Testing at Cryogenic Temperatures (RS578) - Swansea University
• Wellcome Leap funded project aiming to reduce the number of still births using computational modelling and machine learning methods to map the cardiovascular adaptations during pregnancy to highlight risks and complications, feeding in data from hospitals with a wide number of international partners.
• DSTL funded work on the use of wearables and other physiological measures in variable temperature climates (warm/cold) to assess cardiovascular adaptations and predict response to activity in different elevated or reduced temperatures. Surgical Training Devices (funded by the Swansea University EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account, HTC Accelerate, and previously worked with Insight Surgery on different projects).
• EPSRC DTP PhD with UKAEA Fluid-Structure Interaction Measurements and Modelling.
• SURES PhD A novel high-fidelity brain phantom testbed for medical devices.
• MoD PhD Studentship Novel fabrication of energetics (additive manufacturing).
• Global Wales international research mobility fund Advancement of lung mechanical measurements – correlating complementary expertise to characterise lung health, injury and disease, working with Uni of California.
• UKRI/EPSRC + Sêr Cymru funded Patient-specific lung models to guide interventions prior to clinical application in COVID-19 and other lung pathologies.
• Protection Optimisation via Novel Simulation (PONS) - A bridge to the next generation of armour development (with Radnor Range Ltd.) blast injury risk quantification using computational modelling, validated with scaled field experiments.
• Microwave ablation simulation, optimising medical device design thru multi-physics modelling, funded by Olympus Medical / ATL Tech.
• Blast experiment optimisation protocols for armour evaluation and design, (2018), Sêr Cymru National Research Network Industrial Collaboration Award – blast armour testing, using imaging methods during and after each test to assess damage mechanisms.
• Royal Society International Exchanges with Kyushu Uni and Chiba Uni on high res imaging of lungs in health and disease to quantify tissue burden on local and global scale.

The BioMedEng Association – Association of Biomedical Engineers, Medical Engineers and Bioengineers - Council Members: Dr Raoul Van Loon and Professor Perumal Nithiarasu

BSSM - World leaders in stress and strain analysis and experimental mechanics - Chair: Dr Hari Arora

BIOREME - a collaborative network of researchers, industry and patient representatives at the interface of mathematical modelling and respiratory medicine

The BESTlab recent grants awards:

• Smart Intensive Monitoring in Pregnancy (SIMPREG) funded by Wellcome Leap. The PI is R van Loon who drives the developments in developing smart wearables through a combination of computational modelling and machine learning. The work is in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh who cover the clinical work.  
• Differential diagnosis between lymphoedema and obesity patients using a modelling-based data-fusion approach funded by Impact Accellerator Account (EPSRC). In collaboration with Lymphoedema Wales Clinical Network.
• Accessible Novel Solutions for Widespread Emergency Reconstructive Surgery (ANSWERS) funded by Impact Accellerator Account (EPSRC). In collaboration with the Swansea University Medical School and the Swansea Bay University Health Board.

Events:

• MediWales Connects Conference 2023
• ESBiomech 2023, Maastricht

1. Arora, H., Kernot, D., Giron, L., Howells, D., Darcy, M., Hoshino, M., Uesugi, K., van Loon, R., Tanaka, G., & Sera, T. (2024). Lung disease characterised via synchrotron radiation micro-CT and digital volume correlation (DVC). TrAC Trends in Analytical Chemistry, 172, 117588
2. Jovic, T., Nicholson, T., Arora, H., Nelson, K., Doak, S., & Whitaker, I. (2023). A comparative analysis of pulp-derived nanocelluloses for 3D bioprinting facial cartilages. Carbohydrate Polymers, 321, 121261
3. Powell, D., Petrie, F., Docherty, P., Arora, H., Williams, E., & Powell, D. (2023). Development of a Head Acceleration Event Classification Algorithm for Female Rugby Union. Annals of Biomedical Engineering, 51(6), 1322-1330.
4. Kernot, D., Yang, J., Williams, N., Thomas, T., Ledger, P., Arora, H., & van Loon, R. (2022). Transient changes during microwave ablation simulation : a comparative shape analysis. Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology, 22,
5. Time-resolved in situ synchrotron-microCT: 4D deformation of bone and bone analogues using digital volume correlation