Group Member Kevin Krieger has won the 2021 Engineers Ireland Biomedical Research Medal competition. This prestigious medal and €1,500 honorarium, sponsored by DePuy Synthes, is awarded annually to the best PhD-level biomedical engineering researcher in Ireland. The winner is selected by a panel of experts from academia and industry based on a submitted research paper and presentation on their work. The event is normally held at the Annual Conference of the Section of Bioengineering of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland, had to be moved online this year.
Kevin’s winning work “Wearable biosignal sensors using microneedle technology” concerned the development and evaluation of a novel microneedle-based surface electrode platform for surface EMG measurement. With the rise of home healthcare, ambulatory monitoring and associated wearable technology, a need for new sensing devices exists which can be easily applied without the need for professionals, and that enable high-quality measurements during day-to-day activities and long-term wear. While explored for use in surface EMG measurement, the technology can be applied to a wide range of other biosignal applications including electrocardiography (ECG) and electroencephalography (EEG). Furthermore, the 3D-printing-based fabrication methods developed open up new horizons in microneedle design and fabrication for non-invasive wearable sensors as well as microneedle array applications in general.
The research was funded by the Irish Research Council Postgraduate Research Scholarship, NUI Travelling Doctoral Studentship, Marie-Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship, and Science Foundation Ireland.

Owen Humphreys has successfully defended his PhD. His research concerned the development of a urethral model to investigate the friction behaviour of intermittent urinary catheters. Congrats Owen!

The Medical Device Design Group has had its newest paper Development and Evaluation of 3D‐Printed Dry Microneedle Electrodes for Surface Electromyography published in Advanced Materials Technologies. In the work, Kevin Krieger et al. developed dry 3D-printed stainless steel microneedle electrodes as an alternative to commercial wet electrodes and evaluated their performance in the measurement of surface electromyography (sEMG).

https://doi.org/10.1002/admt.202000518

The research was funded by the Irish Research Council Postgraduate Research Scholarship, NUI Travelling Doctoral Studentship, and Marie-Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship (Grant No. H2020‐MSCA‐IF‐2014/658761).

A new paper from the Medical Device Design Group entitled A biomimetic urethral model to evaluate urinary catheter lubricity and epithelial micro-trauma has been published in Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials. In the study, Owen Humphreys et al. developed a human urethral epithelial cell-seeded model of the urethra which was then used to measure the Coefficient of Friction (CoF) of four brands of commercially-available hydrophilic-coated intermittent catheters.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmbbm.2020.103792

Group members Owen Humpreys and Kevin Krieger have one prizes for their oral presentations at the 26th Annual Conference of the Section of Bioengineering of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland (BINI 2020). Owen Humphreys won the Medal for Best Overall Presentation and Kevin Krieger won 3rd Prize in the Biomechanics Category. Both Owen and Kevin’s research is supported by Irish Research Council and Kevin has also received support from National University of Ireland in the form of a Travelling Studentship.

Group Members John Cogan and Emer O’Hare from the iBrux Project are presenting at the finals of the 2019 UCD Venture Launch. The project involves the development of a smart mouthguard along with a mobile application to help patients suffering from Bruxism. The overall winner of the UCD Venture Launch will bwill win €10,000 of seed money in cash as well as professional services and supports for their new venture worth an additional €20,000. The iBrux Project is funded by Enterprise Ireland.

A new paper from the Medical Device Design Group entitled Simple and customizable method for fabrication of high-aspect ratio microneedle molds using low-cost 3D printing has been published in Microsystems & Nanoengineering. In the article, Kevin Krieger et al. describe a two-step fabrication method to produce microneedle moulds using a low-cost SLA 3D printer.

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41378-019-0088-8

The research was funded by the Irish Research Council Postgraduate Research Scholarship, NUI Travelling Doctoral Studentship, , and Science Foundation Ireland.

Group member and 3rd year PhD candidate Oisín Byrne has received a Fulbright Irish Student Award to conduct research over in the Therapeutic Technology Design and Development Laboratory of Professor Ellen Roche at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Oisín’s PhD research focuses on 3D printing medical grade polymers onto cylindrically shaped substrates with applications in coronary artery bypass grafting. As a Fulbright Student to Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he will conduct research into ways to promote the mechanical coupling of medical devices to tissue.

Group Member Ellen Cahill has successfully defended her PhD. Her research focused on the design and manufacturing of microneedles for use in delivery and continuous monitoring devices. Her thesis was examined by Professor Boris Stoeber from Univeristy of British Columbia and Professor Michael Gilchrist and Dr. Dónal Holland who are both from the UCD Centre for Biomedical Engineering.

A new paper entitled Kinematic error modeling and error compensation of desktop 3D printer has been published in Nanotechnology and Precision Engineering. In this paper Shane Keaveney et al. investigate how higher accuracy can be achieved on low-cost 3D printers, enabling the impact and functionality of produced components to improve considerably.  The paper has recently been featured in the article Irish Researchers Examine Benefits of Kinematic Error Modeling & Error Compensation in 3D Printing on the popular 3D printing website 3dprint.com.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.npe.2018.09.002