Training tomorrow's inventors

This prosthetic device, which has gone through many incarnations since, is an alternative to complete knee replacement, helping patients recover mobility faster after the operation and giving them an implant that, in over 90 per cent of cases, lasts for over 20 years. It's a great example of where an engineering idea results in a successful new medical technology but for every success story are other ideas that aren't as commercially viable or don't address a real clinical need. Ideas into products - Part of the answer could be found in the new Centre for Doctoral Training [ CDT ] in Healthcare Innovation which is officially launched today at Oxford University's Institute of Biomedical Engineering [ IBME ]. 'Biomedical engineering is an applied subject that aims to have clinical impact,' Alison Noble Director of the CDT, tells me, 'so it's important to understand that not all good research ideas make good products, and that listening to customer needs, in our case clinicians, can suggest the best research questions to work on that lead to useful solutions - and profits.' The new centre aims to equip a new generation of postgraduate researchers not just with traditional academic biomedical engineering skills, but with an appreciation of the clinical environment in which new inventions have to succeed, and the routes to commercialising a new product or service. 'The traditional doctoral training route focuses on research training in one sub-discipline of biomedical engineering.