Exploring Gait Analysis with Veterinary Students

It was a pleasure to welcome a group of final year Cambridge Veterinary Students to the Surgical Discovery Centre as part of their Elective Study weeks. We looked at how gait analysis can be used with both clinical and research cases, including diagnosis and ongoing investigations into medical or surgical intervention. They then had the opportunity to apply their knowledge with Harry and Wiggy who are always very obliging patients!
Well done everyone for all your hard work and good luck for the future.

Seminar at the Veterinary Department, University of Cambridge

Professor Matthew Allen chaired a departmental seminar this week, with the invited speaker Dr Constanza Gomez Alvarez from the University of Surrey talking about her exciting work into gait analysis in dogs. We have ongoing collaborations between our facilities, and Dr Gomez Alvarez has been instrumental in this. It was a very informative talk, and opened up lively discussions about the future of gait analysis and it's continued integration into patient care.

Comparative Genomics at the Surgical Discovery Centre

The Surgical Discovery Centre was very pleased to host a group of scientists from the Cambridge Resource Centre for Comparative Genomics this week.

Our meeting room provided the perfect facilities for presenting their ongoing research projects.

Pictured here are some of the team with Principal Investigator Professor Malcolm Ferguson-Smith.

Veterinary Nursing Awareness Month 2017

Veterinary Nurses here in the Surgical Discovery Centre, and within the Department of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Cambridge, play a huge role in research, so we are joining in VN Awareness Month in May to celebrate this! #whatvnsdo

Science Festival 2017

Thank you to everyone that could make it to Science Festival 2017.  It was great to meet so many enthusiastic scientists of all ages!

Jose supervised students preparing for "surgery", there were  fractures to fix with Luisa and Charlotte, demonstrations of 3D printing and the robot with Matthew, and plenty more hands on activities for budding vets and researchers, with a great team of volunteers from staff and students.

Looking forward to next year!

Scientists Welcome

We were really pleased to host a practical session run by the SynBio Forum recently,  giving hands-on experience to scientists from a wide range of backgrounds.

Our laboratory provided the ideal environment for the workshop; Programmable biology for diagnostics: impacting global health and development, challenged delegates to design logic circuits using DNA, and programme cell extracts to produce colours or other reporters in response to a signal.

From 3D model to teaching tool.....

Remember the 3D model we printed from a CT of a rabbit skull? Well thanks to some really hard work by one of the final year Veterinary students with John Piper and colleagues it is now a fully functioning teaching tool!

Complete with silicone tongue and articulating jaw, ready to test students' rabbit intubation technique in the Clinical Skills Centre.

Robot takes over Surgical Discovery Centre!

The Surgical Discovery Centre in Cambridge is awaiting delivery of a cutting edge robotic simulator for biomechanics studies. The system, consisting of a KUKA 60-3 robot (https://www.kuka.com) and a dedicated biomechanics software package (SimVitro) developed by the BioRobotics core at Cleveland Clinic in the United States, is due to be installed the week of March 6th, 2017.

Unlike traditional mechanical testing systems, which usually operate in one or perhaps two planes of motion (up and down, to apply tension and compression, or in rotation to apply torque), the new robot is capable of translational and rotational movements around all three axes simultaneously. From a practical perspective, this means that the software drives to the robot to simulate the complexity of movement in both animals and humans. An example of the system's capability to simulate human knee movement can be found on the Cleveland Clinic site (http://mds.clevelandclinic.org/Services/BioRobotics/simVITRO.aspx).

Once installed in the Surgical Discovery Centre, the new simulator will be put to work immediately! The first testing will involve evaluation of the effects of knee replacement on movement patterns in the canine knee. We then plan to use the robot in a new study to develop a better surgical solution for dogs with elbow disease. Watch this space for videos and updates on our progress :)

3D Printing meets Education.

In the Surgical Discovery Centre we've been really excited to use our 3D printing techniques to produce this model from a CT scan of a rabbit's skull.
This is the first stage of a final year Veterinary Medicine student's project we have been working on, alongside the Clinical Skills lab in
the Queen's Veterinary School Hospital.
We are really looking forward to seeing the finished project!

The CT scan of the rabbit's skull

The finished 3D model

G is for Greyhound.......

As part of the Cambridge Animal Alphabet series Professor Matthew Allen emphasises the importance of dogs (in this case greyhounds) as translational models to assist in the diagnosis and treatment of humans with osteosarcoma.

The full article including audio can be found here.