3D Printing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for the frontline NHS staff

Necessity is the mother of invention! Due to shortage of the much needed Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for the frontline healthcare workers dealing with COVID-19 patients 24/7 , everybody started to think out of the box to find an alternative, effective, quick and affordable solutions!

Hence, 3D printing technology became a very reliable tool to be used for that purpose. A tool that we in the surgical discovery centre are privileged to own and master its techniques.

Yesterday, Professor Matthew Allen started 3D printing parts necessary for manufacturing face-shields (visors) to be donated to the NHS .

Thanks to the clever Josef Prusa, the designs STL files are now available to download for free.

If you have access to a 3D printer or you know someone who does, please start your mini-production line as well! It can be done from home, at times like these every effort matters!

There are many local groups who are happy to collect, assemble and distribute the 3D printed shields.

Stay safe & healthy!

Cambridge-China COVID-19 Collaboration (4C) Appeal to secure high quality Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) for frontline staff in the NHS

During these difficult times we all are trying to help in every way possible to conquer the COVID-19 pandemic. Our Brave and reliable NHS workers in the frontline need to be well protected to win this war against this viscous invisible enemy. Please read the message below from two of our colleagues who are raising fund to purchase necessary PPE from China.

Dear Colleagues,

We, Sadaf Farooqi and Toni Vidal Puig, are University of Cambridge academics and medical doctors asking for your help with an Appeal we have launched to obtain high quality Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) for frontline staff in the NHS.

We are delighted that the University is giving its strong support to this venture which will be one of the focal points of the University's COVID-19 appeal, alongside research and student support.

As you know, many researchers across Cambridge have kindly donated spare Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) as part of the University's drive to support our colleagues in the hospital dealing with COVID-19. We want to go further, we want to guarantee the safety and protection of the doctors, nurses, paramedics and other health care professionals on the frontline in Cambridge and the Eastern region, so they can focus entirely on what they do best - caring for patients.

Toni Vidal Puig and I and our teams have been actively working on this for a few weeks. Toni's collaborators at the University of Nanjing, China have generously provided their support and are helping us to purchase supplies in China. We have the support of Chinese entrepreneurs trained in Cambridge who have committed to providing air freight at cost. In parallel, my team (and in some cases their partners) have been working with UK companies that make vacuum cleaners (filters are a major challenge), to see if we can manufacture high grade masks. We have designed plastic visors with a community of volunteers in Makespace in the Dept of Engineering supported by major plastics companies. The visors have been approved by Clinical Engineering and by Infection Control so we know they are safe to use in this high risk clinical setting.

All of this has been possible with the support of many people and companies who have given freely of their time and resources. But we now need to raise funds. This will help us to purchase supplies in China working with our academic colleagues. In the UK, we will make visors (1000/day) to distribute to care homes and paramedics where the need is greatest currently. If you are able to, please consider making a donation.

Our website is www.4cppe.com where you will find a link to our Just Giving page. Please forward this email to others who may be in a position to contribute. Let people know about the Appeal using social media # 4cppe .

On behalf of our colleagues in the NHS, thank you for your support and generosity!

Sadaf Farooqi Wellcome Principal Research Fellow Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science

Toni Vidal Puig Professor of Molecular Nutrition Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science

Orthopedic Research Society (ORS) 2020 annual meeting 7-11 Febraury 2020

We had the privilege to participate in this year’s ORS meeting that took place in Phoenix Arizona, USA . Besides the networking and the inspiring sessions, Charlotte and Sara presented some of their PhD work on Pediatric Bone Cancer and Bone Tissue Engineering (respectively). In addition to taking part in the preclinical animal model section related meeting and workshop in which Matthew gave a talk about planning, preparing, conducting and reporting of preclinical studies.

AO PEER Principles of clinical research course in Cambridge on 23-24 November 2019.

Matthew Allen, AO VET Research & Development Commission Chair speaks about the value of the AO PEER Program one of the AO VET Member privileges. AO PEER is a program for educational research, the platform provides a collection of useful resources and learning opportunities as the the fundamentals of research, statistics or guidelines how to publish your results.
Meet Prof. Matthew Allen at the AO PEER Principles of clinical research course in Cambridge on 23-24 November 2019.

Register now: https://bit.ly/32rsrvT

For further inquiries contact Matthew Allen (mja1000@cam.ac.uk)

Take a look and sign up for the next AO PEER courses: www.aopeer.org

AOPEER Course in Brazil

That’s a wrap from São Paulo! With thanks to the fantastic participants, engaging faculty and the awesome local AOLAT staff (Micheline Bertolani, Idaura Lobo Dias and Carla Vinize) for the best ever Level 2 AOPEER Course on Study Management and Good Clinical Practice!! It was a pleasure to participate - thank you all for your kindness and generosity...and a special thank you to Asdrubal Falavigna and his family for being such great hosts! I look forward to reciprocating October!  #AOVET,#AOSPINE, #AOCMF, #AOTRAUMA, #AOPEER — in São Paulo, Brazil.

Posters and Conferences

A few weeks ago Charlotte attended the the Orthopaedic Research Society Conference in Austin, Texas.
She was selected to present her PhD work on a novel use of proteasome inhibitor drugs to increase radiation sensitivity and improve treatment for patients with Ewing's Sarcoma. This was a fantastic opportunity to network and discuss the work of the SDC with the ORS community of world-renowned surgeons, researchers and medics in the field of orthopaedics.

And Sara presented her poster "Characterisation of Ovine Adipose-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells (AD-MSCs) and Potential Use in Bone Tissue Engineering" at the 2019 Building Bridges in Medical Sciences Conference.
This was a great opportunity, full of exciting talks, a chance to discuss our work and how this fits into the broader field of Medical Science.
Great to meet many like-minded scientists and share our enthusiasm for furthering Veterinary Medicine, which fits into the "One Health" approach when we can all benefit from advances in both human and animal medicine.
#SDC #SurgicalDiscoveryCentre #BBMS2019#bbmsconference #welovescience #welldoneSara#BoneBiology #Cambridge — with Sara Hassounaat Building Bridges in Medical Sciences: BBMS 2019.

Outreach for the vets and medics of the future

As well as welcoming students at the Department of Veterinary Medicine, we are very lucky to be able to visit students elsewhere to share our knowledge and enthusiasm for research. 
Matthew Allen recently visited Millfield School in Somerset where he gave a lecture and a dissection workshop for an amazing group of future vets and medics. Thanks very much to Millfield for the opportunity and such a warm welcome!

#MillfieldSchool #FutureVetsandMedics #sharingresearch #loveresearch#surgicaldiscoverycentre #SDC #veterinary #camvetschool

Visiting studentship for PhD studies in Mechanical Engineering with Orthopaedics

We are delighted to welcome Petra Bonacic Bartolin for a 3 month visit combining engineering with orthopaedic research, under the joint supervision of Professors Michael Sutcliffe and Matthew Allen.

Petra graduated from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, University of Zagreb, Croatia in 2011 (master’s degree with highest honor) and then Petra worked as a mechanical designer in industry and EU project manager for two years.

In 2014 she became project manager and teaching assistant at University of Applied Sciences, Zagreb. She was involved with preparation of the teaching materials and giving lectures in Mechanics, Strength of Materials and Theory of Machines and in preparation of the EU project proposal. She was also the leader in developing a new study program, Prosthetics and Orthotics under the EU project related to the Croatian Qualifications Framework.

In 2015, Petra successfully started her PhD at Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture under the University of Zagreb. PhD thesis is related to numerical and experimental testing of anterior cruciate ligament, as well as modeling new biomechanical implant support for healing of the ACL. Since 2017, Petra has been a Research and teaching assistant at Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture and in 2018, she founded the Orthopedic Engineering Society together with her supervisor Dr.sc. Damir Hudetz, orthopedic surgeon, the aim is to promote orthopedic science and the application of engineering in the orthopedic field of research.

In 2019, Petra won a short – term fellowship in the University of Cambridge, which will involve experimental testing on the canine knee model to determine and compare the biomechanical parameters of biologically healthy knee joints and those who have an implant. The research is also carried out in order to improve the testing protocol, based on the processed data, and to improve the existing prosthesis and methods for treating damaged knee joints in dogs.

Recently she got National Award for best paper Biomechanical flaws of cutting-edge approaches in ACL repair surgery tested on a sheep model,18th ESSKA Congress, 9-12 May 2018 in Glasgow, Scotland, UK.

3D Planning to facilitate complex surgeries

Our 3D printers are always keeping busy, and along with some complex 3D modelling and design techniques, and great team work we can facilitate complex orthopaedic surgeries at the QVSH.

We are delighted to report that Rocco is doing really well one year post surgery, using that leg much more than before his operation, and thanks to his lovely owner we were able to share his story recently in the Camvet graduate newsletter.

Further information on the work Camvet do to support the facilities and teaching at the QVSH can be found on their website https://camvet.vet.cam.ac.uk/

Engineering updates...

Our Engineering Student Fran has been hard at work this term using special accelerometers which our volunteer dogs wore comfortably to gather acceleration data, and in assessing the accuracy of the instrumented treadmill.
She also developed a model to help with understanding how the gait of a dog is linked to the forces it exerts on the ground.

Kinematics is not just for our canine colleagues!

We recently welcomed a group of Engineers to use our gait analysis facilities as part of their work on digital technologies and their use in teaching people new skills or helping them with their work. The aim was to compare the effectiveness of video training to motion-capture training shown in a virtual reality environment, and the kinematics equipment allowed this.

Thomas Bohné and his team are interested in exploring new cyber-human technologies and their potential to augment human capabilities. The research team is part of a strategic research agenda at the Department of Engineering's Institute for Manufacturing (IfM) on the future of skills and human work in manufacturing, which is led by Prof Tim Minshall. Over the past 12 months the team has carried out several experiments with technologies such as AR/VR, haptic gloves and Mocap. In a recent research project, the team collaborated with Prof Matthew Allen and his team from the Department of Veterinary Medicine, and Dr Thomas Stone from the Cambridge Clinical Movement Centre. Together they digitised human work movements of an industrial assembly task and used these data to build a virtual reality training simulation. This simulation was then used as part of a pilot experiment to investigate performance differences between groups receiving different trainings.

Taking Care of Heroes

Many of our patients for shockwave therapy are on reduced/restricted exercise during their treatment, but we understand it can be very hard for both dogs and owners, particularly if they are used to a lot of exercise.
Jaffa came to us for a course of shockwave to treat arthritis in her elbow, and is a very important member of a local search and rescue team.
She is still undergoing treatment, and on "light duties", but the rest of her team are missing her, and hopefully with ongoing medical management at the QVSH she will be back on duty in no time!

Celebrating Students' Research

Great to see the Celebration Event for our Nuffield Research Student William Tan recently! He presented his project: Understanding the interaction of bone cancer cells and the lung environment which he completed here over the summer with guidance from Charlotte.
Thanks for all your hard work William and good luck for the future.

Welcome to Fran

Fran is working with us as part of her undergraduate Engineering Studies into Mechanical and Bioengineering. The aim of the project is to establish whether accelerometers can be used to measure the forces a dog exerts on the ground during motion. This would be to allow data gathering in a more realistic environment, where the speed and directions of movement are not fixed by the type of test. Combining the ground forces with joint angle data will allow rough estimations of the magnitudes of forces in the leg joints, which could be used to help test the suitability and efficacy of different types of total knee replacement in dogs.

Feature in Graduate News

We are delighted that our work in collaboration with the Queen’s Veterinary School Hospital has been featured in the most recent Graduate Newsletter, sent to all Veterinary Graduates from the University of Cambridge. Produced by Camvet, the charity who work tirelessly raising funds for the QVSH, which have helped to provide specialist teaching equipment and state-of-the-art diagnostic and surgical equipment.

It is lovely to see Rocco, a patient that we worked with by providing 3D modelling and a 3D printed surgical guide for his specialist surgery.

And Murphy who came to the QVSH for investigation into lameness and we were able to provide shockwave therapy as part of his ongoing treatment.

Investigating Stem Cells

Sara has been busy on her Phd studies and as part of her work has been investigating innovative tissue engineering approaches for bone regeneration. These images of Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) have all been produced here in the lab with different imaging and processing techniques.

Congress News

We were delighted to be a part of the 5th World Veterinary Orthopaedic Congress this month in Barcelona!
Matthew Allen gave a number of exciting talks and our collaborator Kirsten Haeusler from Tierphysiotherapie Team Haeusler gave a very inspiring talk on Shockwave Therapy.

Placement from the Nuffield Foundation

We have been delighted to welcome William Tan from Hills Road Sixth Form College, who won a 4 week research placement here, organised with the Nuffield Foundation.

The scheme allows students to work under supervision as a professional scientist, and provides opportunities to learn new skills.

With supervision from Charlotte Palmer, William has been working hard investigating 3 separate canine osteosarcoma cell lines, comparing their growth rates and how they differ  in different simulated environments.

Osteosarcoma affects a large number of our canine patients, and our aim is to better understand the disease as it grows and metastasises. Ultimately we hope to relate this to the prognosis for both canine and human patients, and how they might be affected.

Thank you for all your hard work William and good luck for the future!

Research collaboration bears rewards

Our collaboration with Kirsten Haeusler and the team at Tierphysiotherapie Team Haeusler has resulted in the Research Award of Excellence at the IARVPT World Rehab Summit 2018 in Knoxville, Tennessee! Kirsten presented an investigation into the reproducibility of an instrumented pressure-sensitive treadmill using the Zebris Canidgait with clinical cases from their caseload in Stuttgart.

This was the culmination of a lot of team work both in Stuttgart and here at the Department of Veterinary Medicine. Congratulations Kirsten for a brilliant poster and thanks to everyone for all the hard work!

Prizewinning Poster for Charlotte

Congratulations to Charlotte Palmer who won Best Poster at the recent research afternoon event in the Department of Veterinary Medicine! Charlotte presented her work; FACS-based Isolation of Primary and Metastatic Osteosarcoma Cells which forms part of her Phd. It was a great event for sharing the hard work going on here, with colleagues from a wide field of research. Well done Charlotte!