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IBE lecturer leads £2 million project to research eye treatment

The Institute of Biomedical Engineering’s Dr Patrick Degenaar is leading a team of researchers who are developing a new form of genetically enhanced prosthetics (“optogenetics”) that they hope could lead to a new treatment for the eye condition Retinitis Pigmentosa.

The £2 million project is being funded by the European Commission and involves researchers from Imperial College London and European partners. Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) is a group of hereditary eye disorders affecting approximately one person in every 3,500. In the early stages, this leads to poor night vision and a tunnel vision, which gradually narrows until there is a total loss of sight.

Optogenetics could ultimately enable scientists to re-engineer the communication cells in the retina to be able to be remote controlled with special pulses of light. This will allow them to bypass the dysfunctional light sensing cells and send visual information to the brain. In particular, this project will develop the special optoelectronic array which is required to command many thousands of cells simultaneously.

Commenting on the project launch, Dr Patrick Degenaar said: “This exciting project will build the basic molecular, genetic, and optoelectronic tools that we need to develop before we can start working with patients. It is very early days, and the safety of the new genetic technique will be paramount. If successful, it will return a level of vision not previously possible. I would expect optogenetic retinal prosthesis to allow patients to be able to navigate and detect the existence of key features and objects, but people will probably still need assistance for complex tasks such as face recognition and the reading of small print.”

For more details on the optogenic technique being pioneered by the team, please click here.

Professor Molly Stevens Wins Award for Creativity in Polymer Technology

The prize, now in its second year, was awarded by the Executive Editorial Board of Polymer International and the IUPAC Polymer Division in recognition of Professor Stevens novel approaches to tissue engineering that are likely to prove very powerful in the engineering of large quantities of human mature bone as well as other vital organs.

Professor Stevens is actively involved in translation of the technologies to the clinic. She is working on novel polymer composites and nanomaterials, and is currently involved in setting up human clinical studies for bone regeneration.

Professor Stevens multidisciplinary group conducts research into the directed differentiation of stem cells, the design of novel bioactive scaffolds and new approaches towards tissue regeneration and biosensing. Her work has been recognized by a number of awards including the Jean Leray Award from the European Society for Biomaterials (2009), the TR100 (Top 100 Young Innovators in 2004) by Technology Review and the Ronald Belcher Memorial Lecture Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry (2000).

For further information about MACRO2010, please click here.

BioCeramic Therapeutics Wins ACES Academic Enterprise Award

The Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Departments of Materials spin-out BioCeramic Therapeutics and its principal founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Professor Molly Stevens of Imperial College London, have won the prestigious ACES Academic Enterprise Award in the Life Sciences category. The award was presented to the biomaterials company at a ceremony in Paris, France on December 10th 2009.

For more details please visit our News page

Funding for Centre of Bio-Inspired Technology

The Rector of Imperial College, Sir Roy Anderson and Professor Winston Wong have signed an Agreement to mark a donation of £2m from Dr Wong to form a new Centre for Bio-inspired Technology.

The new Institute will be managed and developed by Professor Chris Toumazou will support a new research team of Research Associates, Research Fellows and PhD students funded by the Centre. Funds will also be used to strengthen the collaboration between Taiwanese Universities, hospitals and the semiconductor Industry in Taiwan and Imperial college in the field of Bio-inspired Technology. Additionally, Prof Toumazou will continue his collaboration with medical researchers and clinicians and scientists and engineers from a range of disciplines. His aim will be to move new technologies from the laboratory to commercialisation to ensure that the outcomes contribute to improvements in healthcare, especially for independent living, and lifestyle.

Professor Toumazou said ‘I am honoured that Winston has chosen to fund my research by endowing this Centre. I have long believed that we can learn such a lot from biology and by mimicking living systems we can create and innovate advanced technologies.’

For more details please visit the Imperial College News Page

DNA Electronics Wins R&D Prize at Elektra09 European Electronics Industry Awards

Institute of Biomedical Engineering spin-out DNA Electronics Ltd has been named as the winner of the prestigious R&D prize at the Elektra09 European Electronics Industry Awards for its “SNP Dr” real-time gene testing innovation.  DNA Electronics triumphed from a shortlist of five other finalists to be named winner by an independent panel of judges in recognition of its innovative technology and intellectual property strategy. The Elektra09 award ceremony was held on Tuesday 1st December 2009 at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London.

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Dr Tim Constandinou Wins IET Career Achievement Award

The Institute of Biomedical Engineering’s Dr Tim Constandinou has been announced as the 2009 winner of the IET’s Young Professionals’ Career Achievement Award, given in memory of Mike Sargeant. Dr Constandinou, who currently holds the position of Assistant Research Director and Research Officer of the Bionics Group at the IBE, was presented with his award (pictured) at the IET Ambition and Achievement Awards Ceremony held at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London on 25 November 2009.

For more details please visit our News page

Institute Postgraduate Awarded Prestegious Fellowship

Nir Grossman, a PhD student in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering, has been awarded a BBSRC Enterprise Fellowship, only one of six awards made this year.  The  picture, taken during the RSE Awards Reception on the 2nd of September, shows Nir receiving his award from the President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Lord Wilson of Tillyorn. 

For more details please visit our News page

Institute of Biomedical Engineering Wins Times Higher Education Award

The Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Imperial Col lege London, has been honoured with a top prize for innovation at the prestigious Times Higher Education (THE) Awards 2009.  The Institute was named overall winner in the category of "Outstanding Contribution to Innovation and Technology". The awards were announced at a gala ceremony at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London on Thursday 15th October.

Now in their fifth year, the Times Higher Education Awards are the leading awards for the higher education sector, created to recognise, celebrate and reward the highest standards of excellence and talent in UK academia.  This year the awards attracted over 600 entries from more than 130 higher education institutions.

The Institute of Biomedical Engineering (IBE) was recognised by the panel of specially selected judges for its sheer breadth of innovation in the areas of medical diagnosis and treatment, personalised healthcare, regenerative medicine and biomedical imaging. The panel was impressed by the range of innovation achieved and its transferability into other fields.

For more details please visit our our News Page

IBE Director Professor Chris Toumazou Honoured With 2009 World Technology Award

IBE Director and Chief Scientist Professor Chris Toumazou FRS has been honoured with the 2009 World Technology Award for Health and Medicine.

Professor Toumazou was named as this year’s recipient at a gala ceremony on Thursday 16 July. The award ceremony was held at the TIME Conference Center, Time and Life Building, in New York, at the culmination of the two-day World Technology Summit.

For more details please visit our our News Page

Multi-disciplinary research at Imperial College

Imperial College is renowned as a centre of world class scientific research. One of the key elements in its research strategy is to bring together the scientists, engineers, medical researchers and clinicians in multi-disciplinary centres such as the Institute of Biomedical Engineering.

Imperial is dedicated to harnessing its intellectual and technological resources to improve the health and welfare of people worldwide. By applying technology to advance the treatment and management of chronic disease the Institute of Biomedical Engineering is actively pursuing this aim. Th e Institute is an exciting development for Imperial, it is a working model of the potential for collaborative research to achieve successful outcomes.

Sir Richard Sykes FRS
Rector 2001-2008

The Institute of Biomedical Engineering is the winner of the 2009 Times Higher Education award for outstanding contribution to Innovation and Technology