A new research initiative is under way to develop safe and effective replacement bone and blood vessels for those affected by accident or injury. Dick Ahlstrom, Science Editor, reports.
The €1.2 million EU-funded effort will see seven graduate students from Poland, Spain, Hungary, Turkey and China locate here during the life of the three-year project.
Dublin City University (DCU) will host the research scheme, organised under the European Union's Marie Curie Early Stage Training programme.
"Mobility of the researchers is one of the primary goals of this programme," stated DCU's Dr Lisa Looney, who is co-ordinating the project.
A patient's bone and blood vessels could be grafted from other locations to repair damage, but research into artificial replacement materials offered an alternative, according to Dr Looney, director of DCU's materials processing research centre and a senior lecturer in the school of mechanical and manufacturing engineering.
This will be the focus for the seven students - three women and four men - who together combine expertise in areas including mechanical, biomedical and industrial engineering, biology and biotechnology, she said.
Dr Looney's centre has studied ceramic mixtures for replacement bone and plastics for blood vessels for some time.
"There has been a lot of work done and work on preparatory materials for the Marie Curie students," she added.
Part of the research looks at properties of the materials themselves and another looks at creating the proper structure.
Both must be delivered "in a repeatable and controllable manner", she said. The new materials must also integrate safely with tissues. For example, artificial bone must have pores that allow blood cells to pass through without being blocked.
"We already know the minimum pore size we need in the bone to allow the blood to flow through," she said.
"By the end of the project, we will have the materials and the structure. We will also have more information on how they will perform."