UCL co-ordinates project to advance cardiovascular engineering

UCL is co-ordinating a project to help young researchers develop careers in cardiovascular engineering. The project will also ultimately help these researchers apply cutting-edge research techniques to the design and assessment of new medical devices. MeDDiCA will use computer modelling and simulation at the design phase to predict how new devices will work in a physiological environment. The European Commission (EC) is funding MeDDiCA - a multi-disciplinary and multi-centre Marie Curie Initial Training Network, created to provide innovative training to PhD students and young postdoctoral researchers. The project, funded for four years and with an estimated budget of around three million Euros (?3 million), will focus on the development of models, analysis, validation and standards for medical devices, in particular heart valves and stents. UCL is co-ordinating MeDDiCA's pan-European consortium, which includes engineering software company ANSYS/CFX, the University of Sheffield, the University of Amsterdam, Technical University of Eindhoven, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientific and the Université de Technologie de Compiègne, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Politecnico di Milano and Istituto Superiore di Sanità. MeDDiCA also collaborates with industrial partners in the medical devices industry, including Invatec, Hemolab and Nobil BioRicerche.