Surgery enabled by ultrasonics’ project gets £6.1m EPSRC funding

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council have granted £6.1m funding to researchers from Birmingham, Edinburgh, Leeds and Southampton universities, led by Glasgow University, to find new approaches to using ultrasonic technologies in surgery over the next five years.
Professor of Ultrasonics at Glasgow University, Margaret Lucas, said: “Many benefits will be delivered from new forms of ultrasonic tools. Traditional tools require surgeons to use high forces to cut through bone, for example, where an ultrasonic tool can be tuned to produce an effortless cut. That tuning process also ensures that the ultrasonic device can be tissue selective, able to cut through one tissue without damage to others. Currently, ultrasonic surgical devices suffer from a lack of understanding of the beneficial and damaging effects of high power ultrasonic vibrations interacting with tissue. My interdisciplinary research team of engineers and clinicians will overcome this by relating cell and tissue responses to the motion of ultrasound via ultra-high-speed imaging. The new understanding will aid the design of revolutionary new tools.”