The plaster placed on a grazed knee, the blood glucose monitor used by people with diabetes, and the COVID-19 test kits used during the pandemic may seem vastly different, but they share one thing.
They all come under the umbrella of medical technology (MedTech).
In the 21st century, many associate “tech” with screens and software, but MedTech goes far beyond this; it encompasses any tool, product, or solution that can improve medical outcomes.
Today, many of us take these tools for granted: plasters are in every household first-aid kit, digital monitoring has become commonplace with the rise of smartwatches and wearable devices, and some diagnostic kits can even be found in supermarkets.
But today’s commodities were once innovations, existing only in the mind of the individual who sought a solution to a problem.
Technology Networks spoke with four researchers from Queen Mary University of London to learn more about the solutions they are taking from bench to bedside.
Between them, Dr. Roberto Volpe, Dr. Rosalind Hannen, Dr. Mohamed Thaha, and Dr. Conrad Bessant are working on all angles of MedTech, from building human-relevant models for drug discovery to developing diagnostic devices and building platforms to better understand patient perceptions.
Roberto Volpe, PhD. Senior lecturer in chemical engineering at Queen Mary University of London and founder of Syntex.
“More than 10,000 heart valve replacement surgeries take place in the United Kingdom each year, and over 100,000 take place in the United States. Replacement valves are a poor substitute for the real thing. Heart valves must withstand intense stresses as blood flows through the heart and vascular system.
“Nature has evolved an intricate hierarchical architecture of tissues, especially suited to maintaining valve function in such a harsh environment for many decades. SynTex lets surgeons replicate this.
“It is extremely difficult to emulate the characteristics of native valves with synthetic tissues. With mechanical valves, patients must take lifelong blood-thinning medication to prevent clots forming on or around the valve. Biological valves from animals degrade, so younger patients are more likely to need repeated surgery.
“SynTex has developed a new material for creating artificial heart valves that will allow patients to live their lives following valve replacement, indistinguishable from having a healthy heart.” — Dr. Roberto Volpe.
“SynTex has developed a carbon-polymer composite that mimics the complex properties of native valves. We bonded tiny pyrolytic carbon particles into a polymer to create composite membranes that can be fine-tuned for rigidity and flexibility, providing mechanical fluid-dynamic properties that mimic natural tissue. This would be hard to replicate using polymers alone.”
“For patients, SynTex gives people their lives back, allowing them to live actively as if they had never needed the surgery. For clinicians, SynTex removes the need for ongoing medication or repeat surgery, which are currently required with conventional valve replacements.” — Dr. Roberto Volpe.
Rosalind Hannen, PhD. Lecturer at Queen Mary University of London and chief executive officer at Keratify.
“Our innovation is a new engineering approach that fully sustains human skin in the lab for longer. It aims to replicate the skin environment to eliminate lab skin testing errors.
“By predicting human skin responses at the earliest stage of laboratory testing, we hope to transform the trajectory of dermatology research and development.” — Dr. Rosalind Hannen.
“This technology could resolve laboratory skin testing inaccuracies, as balanced accuracy rates can be as low as 59% for certain compounds and testing methods. Almost all skin culture systems use a tissue culture incubator that was designed to support general cell culture of internal organs. These incubators are hot, humid, and have high CO2 compared to atmospheric air. Such conditions can alter the skin barrier. For example, relative humidity can influence chemical permeation and susceptibility to biological stress.
“Uniquely, human skin acts as a barrier, protecting internal organs from external air. Therefore, it needs a specialized incubator for effective culture.
“Our engineering is designed to replicate the full skin environment, so that the uppermost side of the skin sits in an air-relevant atmosphere, whereas the lower side is supplied with nutrients, heat, and the correct type of gas to keep the skin alive. This means our OneVivo platform retains aspects of skin function, from barrier to viability, immune response, and metabolic profile. As a result, OneVivo can better assess how compounds and drugs permeate, respond to, and work within skin to closely predict clinical results.
“Our technology is a preclinical skin testing platform; it touches every aspect of skincare from cosmetics to pharmaceuticals.” — Dr. Rosalind Hannen.
“Dermatology has some of the highest potential growth, but a lack of fully predictive preclinical test models has held the field back. Therefore, the impact of truly predictive skin models at the earliest stage of preclinical testing is profound. Globally, skin conditions represent the fourth largest nonfatal health burden, and billions of individuals will experience a skin condition in their lifetime. Therefore, improving skin health, as well as furthering the safety and effectiveness of cosmetics and consumer goods, is imperative.”
Mohamed Thaha, MD, PhD. Senior lecturer in colorectal surgery at Queen Mary University of London, honorary consultant in colorectal surgery at Barts Health NHS Trust, and co-founder of CE-Track and CE-Move.
“Diagnosing bowel cancer often requires a colonoscopy. The prospect is so daunting that many patients put off having the procedure. Delay ultimately makes treatment harder and can mean missed opportunities for a cure. Capsule endoscopes (camera pills) are far easier for patients. However, once swallowed, the clinician has no control over the capsule and can even struggle to work out exactly where in the colon they are looking.
“CE-Track aims to close that gap, giving clinicians the accuracy they need to improve survival prospects for bowel cancer patients.
“CE-Track is a wearable tracking device for locating a capsule endoscope as it moves through the body, so the clinician knows exactly what they’re looking at.” — Dr. Mohamed Thaha.
“CE-Track uses advanced sensing, machine learning, and AI to locate and track the capsule endoscope. The aim is to create a technology that is far more accurate than simply estimating the position of the capsule based on how much time has passed, and far more comfortable than a traditional colonoscopy.
“CE-Track has the potential to save lives by enabling faster, accurate diagnosis of bowel cancer. This technology will also provide the roadmap for CE-Move, our new robotic, movable capsule endoscope that can be controlled by the clinician from the outside, supporting safer investigations.” — Dr. Mohamed Thaha.
“Together, the two technologies point toward a new generation of small robotic capsule endoscopes that can see, diagnose, and perform surgeries inside the bowel.”
Conrad Bessant, PhD. Professor of bioinformatics at Queen Mary University of London and co-founder of Mebomine.
“We have built a platform that leverages cutting-edge AI and robust statistical methods to unlock unprecedented insights into patient experience from public online discussion forums. The platform facilitates a better understanding of patient perception at a faster rate than traditional methods.
“Listening to patients is vital to truly understand their hopes, fears, and day-to-day experiences of illness and treatment. But gathering authentic patient experience data is difficult, expensive, and still far from routine.” — Dr. Conrad Bessant.
“Compared to traditional methods, such as patient interviews and questionnaires, our platform can provide genuine patient experience data at a larger scale, faster rate, and lower cost.
“Our patient experience data equips pharmaceutical companies and healthcare providers with deeper insights into patient needs and preferences, supporting the development of novel products and more effective patient-centred communication. The data can also be used to develop patient-reported outcome measures, which are real-world indicators of drug efficacy that are increasingly being encouraged by regulators such as the US Food and Drug Administration.”