Innovations in the treatment of the Burn Injured

Heather Cleland
Head of the Victorian Adult Burns Service
Clinical Director of the Alfred Skin Tissue Culture Laboratory
Alfred Hospital

Tuesday 15th September 2015

6.00pm (1800) Refreshements from 5.30 (1730)

President’s Room
21 Bedford Street, North Melbourne

All Welcome

This presentation will focus on recent developments in the clinical application of various skin substitutes for the treatment of burn injured patients.
The characteristics of the ideal skin substitute will be described, along with potential strategies for addressing the challenge of achieving timely wound closure and functional reconstructions in patients with extensive skin loss.

About the speaker
Heather is Visiting Plastic Surgeon and Head of the Victorian Adult Burns Service at the Alfred Hospital, where she is Clinical Director of the Alfred Skin Tissue Culture Laboratory. The laboratory’s work is primarily translational research related to the development of bioengineered skin substitutes.
Heather is Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the Department of Surgery, Monash University and Past President of the Australian & New Zealand Burn Association (ANZBA).
She has published extensively on a variety of burns related subjects; including the use of skin substitutes and development of bioengineered products for treatment of patients with severe burns, and the impact of new treatment technologies on surgical and multidisciplinary aspects of clinical care delivery and outcomes.

Innovations in Critical Care:
Stopping Patients Dying in Hospital –
A Systems Engineering Approach

Associate Professor Chris Wright
Director of Clinical Programs
Monash University

Tuesday 21st July

6:00 PM(Refreshments available from 5:30 PM)
Engineering House
21 Bedford St, North Melbourne

Abstract
There is an increasing recognition that hospitals can be dangerous places. Some of this risk is related to the severity of patients’ illness, but some is related to poor decision making by clinical staff. The progressive specialisation of medicine may have something to do with this - a lack of a central “coordination” process.
In response to this, health care systems have implemented Rapid Response Teams (or Medical Emergency Teams - MET), which are to be called when specific physiological criteria are met. The efficacy of MET teams is not established, the data are unclear; part of the problem may be the lack of activation of the system.
This talk will focus on the future of ubiquitous monitoring systems for hospital inpatients - what sensors are needed, how is the data to be integrated and how an intelligent response to be activated.

Biography
Chris Wright is a Fellow of the College of Critical Care Medicine, and of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, and he has studied physics at Monash University. He was the director of the Intensive Care Unit at Southern Health (now Monash Health) and is now the Director of Clinical Programs for the medical course at Monash University.

Innovations In Replication of Human Anatomical Dissections by 3D Printing: uses in Education

Professor Paul McMenamin

Director of the Centre for Human Anatomy Education

Tuesday 16th June

All welcome

6.00pm - Refreshments from 5.30pm

Engineering House, 21 Bedford Street, North Melbourne

Abstract

The teaching of anatomy has been the subject of much controversy, dating back to the days of the grave robbers and more recently in the debate about the value of employing human cadavers in the medical teaching. Cultural and religious sensitivities are major obstacles to cadaver based teaching in many countries around the globe. In these countries teachers are faced with two alternatives – artificial plastic models that lack anatomical detail and accuracy or very expensive plastinated human cadaver parts imported from other countries. We have developed a complete range of high resolution colour anatomical 3D prints based on specimens that have been either CT scanned or laser scanned and the data rendered in 3D software before printing. Our ‘Monash 3D Printed Normal Anatomy Series’ has recently been completed and is suitable for use in any setting (hospitals, classrooms, doctor’s surgeries, universities, libraries etc) in any country worldwide.

Biograph

Paul has been involved in teaching anatomical sciences to medical students, science students and a range of postgraduate surgical and medical specialists for around 35 years. After completing a degree in Zoology at Glasgow University, Scotland, where he studied the question of silent flight in owls he went on to do a PhD focussing on the anatomy of the eye and the pathology of glaucoma. In 1983 he undertook a professional training in medical anatomy (M.Sc. [Med. Sci]) after which he migrated to Perth, where he took up a lectureship in anatomy at The University of Western Australia (1987). Paul was appointed to full Professor in 2003 and obtained his D.Sc. (Medicine) in 2010. He continues to have an active laboratory studying a range of eye diseases including uveitis, macular degeneration and childhood blindness and has published around 140 papers and one textbook. In 2010 he took up the post of ‘Director of The Centre for Human Anatomy Education’ in the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at Monash University, Melbourne. Paul is passionate about teaching and has been the recipient of numerous teaching accolades including ‘The Premier’s Award for Excellence in Teaching’ (Western Australia) in 2007. He has pioneered new approaches to teaching such as body painting and in the last 2 years he has, along with his team at the Centre, pioneered a unique method of creating 3D prints of human anatomy, based on clinical radiographic data and scanned cadaveric specimens, with the aim of bringing these unique anatomy learning resources to medical schools, hospitals and teaching institutions around the world. By mid-2015 he and his team at Monash University will have essentially completed a 3D printed replica of the human body. In his presentation he will tell of this recent project and discuss the future for 3D printing in science and medical education.and Research

Note: The Palatino Linotype Font is used today in tribute to German design and typography legend Hermann Zapf
http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/font-tributes-to-german-design-and-typography-legend-hermann-zapf-20150611-ghlcuk.html

Current Innovations in Reproductive
Technology: The Lifepod Artificial
Placenta & Womb

Dr. Stephen Bird
Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology
The University of Melbourne

Tuesday 21st April 2015

Starts 6:00 PM(Refreshments available from 5:30 PM)

Engineering House
21 Bedford St, North Melbourne

All welcome

Abstract
Premature birth is the early and often sudden delivery of a baby before 37 weeks of a normal 9 month (40 week) term and is now the second highest cause of infant deaths across the world. Whilst the majority of infants born after 6 months (28 weeks) do well with current therapies that involve resuscitation techniques, babies born under 6 months (22-25 weeks) are pre-viable. These extremely preterm infants often die because their hearts, kidneys and lungs have not developed to the point that they can function on their own. Most of these infants would be born healthy if they could remain in the womb to continue on their normal developmental and growth trajectory.

The scale of the problem is concerning, with 270,000 extremely preterm infants born each year and 80% of these infants only surviving the first few hours of life. Twenty percent of infants that do survive will have considerable short- and long-term complications that will significantly impact on their quality of life including, chronic lung disease, cognitive delay, vision & hearing loss and cerebral palsy.

Medical technology can help these babies by returning them to a womb-like environment, nourished and oxygenated by an artificial placenta, allowing a pre-viable infant to reach maturity and grow normally; this seminar will discuss the LifePod artificial placenta and womb project, and how it will
provide a way forward for infants born at the border of viability.

Biography
Dr. Stephen Bird has a Master Degree in analytical chemistry, a PhD in biomedical science and more than 20 years of research and teaching experience in tertiary education. Formerly, Stephen worked in New Zealand investigating the peritoneal membrane and its use in artificial renal replacement therapy for patients with end-stage kidney disease. Stephen’s interest in developmental biology was inspired whilst working in the Netherlands at the Hubrecht Institute, where he helped develop a culture model of adult cardiomyocytes for regenerative heart research. These themes continued in Australia and now Stephen is focused on developing awareness of extreme preterm birth and research into artificial placentation to help extremely preterm infants.

Dr Bird holds an Honorary appointment in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Melbourne, and teaches bioscience at the Australian Catholic University. He is a member of the Medical Technology Organization, STC Australia and is passionate about developing Medtech solutions for the most pressing medical problems in collaboration with the wider engineering, bioengineering and medical communities. He is the Founding Director of the preterm-baby awareness and fundraising not-for-profit organisation, Let Them Grow.

Current Technological Innovations in
Neuroengineering and Medical Bionics

Professor Hugh McDermott
Deputy Director, Bionics Institute of Australia

Tuesday 17th March 2015

Starts 6:00 PM(Refreshments available from 5:30 PM)
Engineering House
21 Bedford St, North Melbourne

All welcome

Abstract
Since the first person received an implantable cardiac pacemaker in the 1950s, there has been a rapid development and application of medical bionics devices. Such devices employ miniature electronic circuits that interface directly with nerves and other excitable tissues.
Examples of successful bionic devices include cochlear implants and deep brain stimulators as well as cardiac pacemakers. Cochlear implant (CI) systems have been provided to over 300,000 children and adults worldwide, enabling useful hearing when acoustic aids are insufficient. Like CIs, deep brain stimulation (DBS) devices deliver controlled electric current pulses to neural tissue via an array of implanted electrodes. DBS has been approved for over 10 years to treat symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor, and more than 100,000 patients have been implanted. Benefits have been demonstrated not only for movement disorders but also for other medically challenging conditions such as epilepsy and certain neuropsychiatric conditions. Furthermore, several types of visual prosthesis are being evaluated presently, and a range of novel devices known as ‘electroceuticals’ are under development to treat conditions as diverse as obesity and diabetes. Today’s rapid advances in the fields of neuroengineering and medical bionics are bringing effective new therapies to people living with numerous conditions that are not adequately alleviated by conventional treatments.

Biography
Hugh McDermott is the Deputy Director of the Bionics Institute of Australia, a Fellow of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), and a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America.
For over 30 years he has contributed directly to the design, development, and evaluation of neurostimulation devices, particularly cochlear implants, and signal processing systems. The outcomes of this research have had direct application to practical improvement of products manufactured by the world’s foremost companies in this field (including Cochlear Ltd, Australia and Sonova AG, Switzerland). Over the past 5 years Hugh’s activities have extended into the fields of prosthetic vision and brain stimulation.
The latter research aims to treat conditions such as movement disorders and certain neuropsychiatric conditions by means of electric stimulation of the brain. Hugh is an honorary Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne. He is named as an inventor on over 20 patent families and is a prolific author. In 2009 he was awarded the inaugural Callier Prize by the University of Texas for leadership “that has fostered scientific advances and significant developments in the diagnosis and treatment of communication disorders”.


Note to Engineers Australia Members
EA Biomedical College Members are urged to RSVP via their intended attendance via the EA website
https://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/events/current-technological-innovations-neuroengineering-and-medical-bionics

Current Innovations in Cardiovascular Technology:
Emerging Cardiac Technology,
clinical need and engineering evolution

Professor James D. Cameron
Associate Director MonashHEART, Monash Medical Centre
Member, Senior Medical Staff, Monash Health & Epworth Hospital
Director, Monash Cardiovascular Research Centre
(Adjunct) Professor of Medicine, Monash University

Tuesday 17th February 2015

Starts 6:00 PM(Refreshments available from 5:30 PM)
Engineering House
21 Bedford St, North Melbourne

All welcome

Abstract
The presentation will provide an overview of engineering responses to the improvement of clinical effectiveness in the evolution of new cardiac technologies, in particular in cardiac CT imaging, renal denervation for resistant hypertension and in the rapidly progressing development of devices for the transluminal repair/replacement of heart valves.

Biography
Professor James D. Cameron MBBS MD BE(Elec) MEngSc FIEAust. CPE(Biomed), FCSANZ

• Director, Monash Cardiovascular Research Centre, Associate Director MonashHEART. Monash Medical Centre.
• (Adjunct) Professor of Medicine - Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
• Member, Senior Medical Staff - Monash Health and Epworth Hospital, Melbourne, Australia

Jim Cameron is Director of the Monash Cardiovascular Research Centre and Associate Director of MonashHEART at Monash Medical Centre. He is internationally known for work on large, conduit artery function and mechanics with particular interests in hypertension, assessment of arterial function in vascular health and in biological ageing; and more recently his group has been at the forefront of novel approaches to the assessment of cardiac function using cardiac CT. He was co-recipient of the 2004 RJ Hall prize of the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand and was admitted to Fellowship of the Society in 2006. From 2008
to 2013 he was Professor of Engineering (Biomedical) at La Trobe University. He is
immediate Past-President of the International Society of Vascular Health.

Note to Engineers Australia Members
EA Biomedical College Members are urged to RSVP via their intended attendance via the EA website
http://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/events/current-innovations-cardiovascular-technology-emerging-cardiac-technology-clinical-need-and

Strategy Meeting-Where to in 2015

This meeting is an open invitation to all members. Everyone is invited to put forward topics of interest and ideas for other SMBE activities to be conducted in 2015.

All welcome

Tuesday 20th January 2012
Starts at 5.30 pm till 7.30 pm

Engineers Australia
21 Bedford Street North Melbourne