Engineering and medical students from across Europe have designed some next-generation medical devices in a recent summer school at Trinity College Dublin’s Centre for Bioengineering.
Their designs include an ankle replacement, technologies to empower the elderly, and artificial ventilation and gas exchange systems.
A total of 27 biomedical engineering and medical students attended the week-long summer school.
Seven countries involved
Undergraduates from the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin were joined by their counterparts from the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland, as well as students from the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Italy and the Czech Republic.
They looked at current healthcare challenges, such as the ageing of Europe’s population and cardiovascular disease. These require a multidisciplinary approach in terms of diagnosis, treatment and the design of medical devices.
Coming from different working cultures and educational backgrounds, they worked together in small teams to design new medical devices targeting specific medical and clinical problems.
The summer school is part of a new platform for cooperation between medicine and engineering students across Europe. It is being organised by the European Society of Engineering and Medicine (ESEM).
The students’ ideas will be published on ESEM’s website and the results will be circulated to the medical device industry.
Major growth in medical technology
Ireland is a major base for medical technology companies. It has many pioneering start-up companies in the sector, and eight of the world’s 10 largest medical device companies are located in Ireland.
Over half of the medical technologies companies based in Ireland have dedicated R&D facilities employing science and technology graduates.
The sector employs over 26,000 people and generates sales of over €6 billion a year, with annual growth approaching 16 per cent.
Learn more
Find out more about bioengineering at TCD’s Centre for Bioengineering
Download some lecture slides from the summer school (warning – some files are very large!)
Visit the European Society of Engineering and Medicine’s website
