3ME - Modelling Methods for Medical Engineering

医学工程正在成为工程专业的一个新前沿。未来的工程师可能会像研究钢铁或混凝土一样，研究人体组织和细胞。医学工程正吸引着一批令人印象深刻的新人才，他们看到许多最新的生物医学研究课题的核心都是工程问题。基尔大学医学科学技术研究所（ISTM）成立于2004年，旨在弥合基础科学技术与医学和临床实践之间的差距。基础科学家和工程师的工作方法、术语和专业文化与医学专业人员不同。在将临床医生与能够帮助他们了解、诊断和治疗疾病的科学和技术领域联系起来方面往往存在困难。在将基础科学项目与临床需要的相关领域联系起来方面也存在困难。这些困难主要是通过使用不同的术语，缺乏空间和缺乏时间来满足。基尔大学的ISTM通过采用从实验室到临床的方法，成功地将许多基础科学家与临床医生联系起来。但是，ISTM已经确定了该大学的两个专业领域，这将有助于推进其几个正在进行的项目，特别是在通过组织工程和干细胞工程在实验室中培育替代人体组织等领域。基尔的数学建模小组运用数学建模技术来解决工业过程、生物学和人类生理学中的问题。该小组具有国际知名度，并对将其专业知识应用于干细胞和细胞工程等令人兴奋的新领域越来越感兴趣。基尔大学应用与环境地球物理研究小组使用超高分辨率地球物理技术和数值模拟来研究地质特征，特别是石油储量、考古和环境的其他方面。该集团的专长涵盖燃料电池、清洁能源、生物质利用、污染控制、废物管理、绿色化学、煤炭的清洁和创新利用，并在全球范围内建立了学术和商业联系。他们在创造地球特征和空间图像方面的专业知识同样可以很好地应用于人体。这些科学家和临床医生一起决定成立医学工程建模方法（3ME）倡议，试图鼓励合作，为开发医学工程技术时遇到的一些问题提供新的思考方式。四位教授领导该计划：医学工程方面的Alicia El Haj教授和Jon Dobson教授，数学建模方面的Graham Rogerson教授和地球物理学方面的Peter Styles教授。他们各自领导的研究小组包括其他教授、讲师、研究助理和研究生，因此基尔大学大约有30-40名员工对参与3ME计划感兴趣。有几种方法可以在这些群体之间建立新的联系：快速约会和配对介绍年轻讲师彼此研究。驻校研究员计划中，工作人员互换角色，让自己沉浸在一种新的研究文化中。他们将为同事和学生做讲座和其他会议。问题范围界定研讨会确定一系列共同感兴趣的复杂问题，并确定解决这些问题的方法。在沙坑会议上，30名被选中的参与者在两天内集中讨论想法，最好的想法得到大约25000人的支持，以帮助发展它并进行一些首次实验。这里有两个。背靠背研讨会：几对40分钟的研讨会，一个接一个。来自其他大学的访问高级研究员。

Medical Engineering is emerging as a new frontier for the engineering profession. The engineer of tomorrow may be just as likely to be working with human tissues and cells, as with steel or concrete. Medical Engineering is attracting an impressive range of new, talented individuals who see that many of the latest bio-medical research topics have engineering problems at their heart.At Keele University, the Research Institute for Science & Technology in Medicine (ISTM) was established in 2004 to bridge the gap between new advances in basic science and technology with medicine and clinical practice. Basic scientists and engineers have different methods of working, terminology and professional cultures to those working in the medical professions. There are often difficulties in linking clinicians to areas of science and technology that can help them to understand, diagnose and treat diseases. There are also difficulties in linking basic science projects to relevant areas of clinical need. Those difficulties are mainly through using different terms, lack of space and lack of time to meet. ISTM at Keele has successfully linked many basic scientists to clinicians by taking a bench to bedside approach. But ISTM has identified two further areas of expertise within the University that would help to advance several of its ongoing projects, especially in areas such as growing replacement human tissues in the laboratory through Tissue Engineering and Stem Cell Engineering.1. Keele's Mathematical Modelling Group employ mathematical modelling techniques to solve problems in industrial processes, biology and human physiology. This group has an international profile and is increasingly interested in applying its expertise to exciting new areas like stem cells and cell engineering.2. Keele's Applied and Environmental Geophysics Research Group uses ultra-high resolution geophysical techniques and numerical modelling to study features of geology, especially oil reserves, archaeology and other aspects of the environment. The group's expertise covers fuel cells, clean energy, biomass utilisation, pollution control, waste management, green chemistry, clean and innovative utilisation of coal, involving academic and commercial links throughout the world. The expertise they have in creating images of features and spaces in the earth can equally well be applied to human bodies.Together these scientists and clinicians have decided to form the Modelling Methods for Medical Engineering (3ME) Initiative to try to encourage working together, enabling new ways of thinking about some of the problems that have been encountered in trying to develop medical engineering technologies. Four Professors are leading the Initiative: Prof Alicia El Haj and Prof Jon Dobson from the Medical Engineering side, Prof Graham Rogerson from Mathemtical Modelling and Prof Peter Styles from Geophysics. They each lead research groups involving other professors, lecturers, research assistants and research students, and so there are about 30-40 staff at Keele who are interested to be involved in the 3ME Initiative. There are several ways to forge new links between those groups:1. Speed Dating and Pairing introducing young lecturers to each others research.2. Researcher in Residence scheme in which staff swap roles to immerse themselves in a new research culture. They will present lectures and other sessions to colleagues and students.3. Problem Scoping Workshops identifying a series of complex problems of mutual interest and defining approaches to tackle them.4. Sandpit meetings in which 30 selected participants discuss ideas intensively for two days, and the best idea receives around 25,000 support to help develop it and carry out some first experiments. There will be two of these.5. Back-to-Back Seminars : several pairs of 40 minute seminars, one after the other.6. Visiting Senior Research Fellows who will visit from other universities.