Health Technologies Supervisors
Theme Leader: Professor Lord Ara Darzi
Ara Darzi
Health Technologies
Research led by Professor Darzi is directed towards achieving best surgical practice through both innovation in surgery and enhancing the safety and quality of healthcare. This is achieved by a combined focus on the role and evaluation of new technologies, studies of the safety and quality of care, development of methods of enhancing healthcare delivery and of new approaches to education and training. Professor Darzi is internationally respected for his pioneering and innovative work in the advancement of minimal invasive surgery and in the development and use of allied technologies including surgical robots and image-guided surgery.
Further Information: http://www1.imperial.ac.uk/medicine/people/a.darzi/
Contact Details
a.darzi@imperial.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)20 7886 1310
Etienne Burdet
Human Robotics
The Human Robotics group of Dr. Etienne Burdet uses an approach integrating neuroscience and robotics to: i) investigate human motor control and ii) design efficient assistive devices and virtual reality based training for surgery and rehabilitation. Our current projects include the development of a Virtual Reality microsurgery training system, robot-assisted neurorehabilitation at decentralized centers or at home for stroke patients and cerebral palsy children, and assistive devices such as robotic wheelchairs to move autonomously in public areas such as hospitals and home. All these projects are done in close collaboration with physicians and tested with patients.
Further Information: http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/people/e.burdet
Contact Details
e.burdet@imperial.ac.uk
David Edwards
Neonatal Research
The Neonatal research group works to reduce the incidence and severity of brain injury in newborn infants. The group has been responsibe for the first successful treatment to reduce brain damage after birth asphyxia which, together with colleagues around the world, we have taken from the laboratory bench through pilot clinical studiesto a successful multicentre randomised trial. The group continues to develop new neuroprotective treatments for the newborn.
A major part of the groups work involves MR imaging. We have a dedicated 3.0T Magnetic Resonance Scanner sited within the neonatal intensive care unit which allows us to collect data on the most vulnerable newborn infants. With this unique resource we have develolped and implmented novel neuroinformatic tools including Deformation Based Morphomety, Probabalistic Tractography, Tract Based Spacial Statistics and both resting state and stimulated functional MRI in infants as small as 23 weeks gestational age.
We have strong collaborations with Imaging Physics and Computing groups and a critical mass of researchers underpinned by substantia research funding- we currently hold 4 MRC grants, and EPSRC grant and an NIHR programme grant. Neonatology researchers in our group have recently been awarded a MRC Clinician Scientist Award and a New Blood Senior Lecturership.
We offer a variety of research projects in neuroinformatics, neuroprotection or other novel areas of imaging or neurological research. We are particularly keen to develop neonatal Clinician Scientists and have an active programme of NIHR Academic Clinical Fellows and Lecturers.
Further Information
http://www1.imperial.ac.uk/medicine/people/david.edwards/
http://www.csc.mrc.ac.uk/Research/Groups/BRD/NeonatalMedicine/
Contact Details
david.edwards@imperial.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)20 8383 3326
Dudley Pennell
Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (CMR)
The CMR Unit based at Royal Brompton campus specialises in cardiovascular applications of Magnetic Resonance technologies. The main foci of activity include cardiomyopathy, cardiac siderosis in thalassemia and other transfusion dependent haemoglobinopathies, congenital heart disease, early atherosclerosis, myocardial perfusion, and the physics development of new imaging techniques.
The CMR Unit has published 500 research articles in the field since 1984, and has the largest clinical throughput of its type in the world, yielding a rich environment for clinical research.
The CMR Unit director is Professor Dudley Pennell.
Further Information: http://www1.imperial.ac.uk/medicine/people/d.pennell/
Contact Details
d.pennell@imperial.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)20 7351 8810
Charles Vincent
Systems approach to surgical quality and safety
Prof Charles Vincent is one of the world's leading authorities on Patient Safety. Since 1985 he has carried out research on the causes and consequences of harm to patients and methods of prevention. Charles is now the Director of the Imperial Centre for Patient Safety and Service Quality which is at the forefront of the strategy to establish safety and quality research as a fundamental component of medical research in the UK. Programmes in the Centre include the patient perspective, diagnosis and decision making, safety and quality improvement in surgery, A&E and elderly care, and organisational approaches to safety. He is currently engaged in developing the role of design in care delivery, examining how well-designed equipment, IT systems and new technologies can improve healthcare.
For more details of the CPSSQ's work, please see http://www.cpssq.org/
Further information:
Contact Details
c.vincent@imperial.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)20 7886 2124
Peter Weinberg
Cardiovascular disease and physiological flow
Atherosclerosis, the disease underlying most heart attacks and strokes, is characterised in its early stages by the focal accumulation of lipid, cells and connective tissue components within the arterial wall. A striking feature of the disease is that these lesions develop in some regions of the arterial system but not others. That suggests the existence of powerful local risk factors controlling the development of the disease; understanding these factors could provide new routes for intervening in the disease process. Our lab focuses on the roles of local blood flow and variations in the permeability of the wall to circulating lipoproteins.
Further Information: http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/people/p.weinberg
Contact Details
p.weinberg@imperial.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)20 7594 1517
Guang-Zhong Yang
Computational imaging
Professor Yang's research is focussed on cardiovascular magnetic resonance, pervasive computing, computer vision, perceptual intelligence, biomedical simulation and augmented reality systems. Clinically orientated research projects are carried out jointly with the Department of Biosurgery and Surgical Technology and include the development of surgical robotics and allied technologies for the advancement of minimally invasive surgery.
Further Information: http://www1.imperial.ac.uk/medicine/people/g.z.yang/
Contact Details
g.z.yang@imperial.ac.uk
Thanos Athanasiou
The use of an induced pluripotent stem cell-derived invitro model to investigate the effect of antiarrhythmic pharmacotherapies on gene expression in cardiac myocytes
Cardiovascular disease is the most common cause of death globally. Most of these deaths are sudden, occurring because of arrhythmias; electrical disturbances that cause irregular or abnormal cardiac contraction. Arrhythmias are caused by altered states of cardiac myocyte excitability, often caused by abnormalities of ion channels, called channelopathies. There is strong evidence to suggest that channelopathies can be attributed to abnormal expression or mutation of the genes that encode channel proteins. As there is considerable variation in genes expression even in healthy individuals, variation in the efficacy and side effect profiles of antiarrhythmic drugs is not unexpected.
Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPC) are pluripotent cells created by artificially forced expression of genes encoding transcription factors in non-pluripotent cells such as adult somatic cells. Several groups have successfully differentiated human iPC cardiac myocytes, which demonstrate appropriate responses to inotropic agents and ion channel blockers. This raises the possibility of patient-specific in vitro disease modeling.
During this PhD we hope to better characterize the electrophysiological, immunological and epigenetic properties of human iPC derived cardiomyocytes. Ultimately we hope that this may contribute to the development of personalized in vitro models which could reliably be used to test individual patient response to novel or existing cardiac pharmacotherapy. A reliable in vitro model would result in greater understanding of the cellular response of normal and pathological cardiac myocytes to pharmacotherapy. This could facilitate development of novel therapy for cardiac arrhythmias.
Further Information: http://www.thanosathanasiou.co.uk/
Contact Details
t.athanasiou@imperial.ac.uk
