Anne Neville’s, Professor of Tribology and Surface Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Leeds, distinguished career and contribution to engineering has been honoured. She has been made an Officer of the (Most Excellent) Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the UK New Year’s Honours list for services to engineering. Among many achievements cited, her research group was the first to be able to monitor corrosion in a full hip joint simulator, which enabled the team to understand corrosion processes and link this to lubrication of the joint in a way previously not possible. LLJ is building on this knowledge.read more
7. December 2016
New channels of dissemination
LLJ as a project community takes broader dissemination of what we do and why we do it seriously. We have had two very successful events for hip replacement patients. In October the project was represented by Prof. Morlock in a more radical science dissemination event “Blackmarket for Useful Knowledge and Non-Knowledge“. In a ‘speed dating type of set up’ people have an opportunity to meet experts and discuss a topic for 30 min. An expert and a knowledge seeker discuss, observed by an observer to see what is imparted. The concept of Blackmarket for Useful Knowledge and Non-Knowledge. The art of the assembly is explained in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5Q65QFx22M.
Professor Michael Morlock was billed as head of the Hamburg Institute of Biomechanics, a professor at the Technical University, Hamburg, and former president of the German Society for Biomechanics. As a mathematician and sports scientist, he tries to develop endoprostheses that last a lifetime – and even beyond. “He will discuss societal challenges of medical technologies by showing prostheses that outlived their owners (such as artificial heart valves and hip joints)”. In other words Life Long Joints!
The event as a whole attract around 500 participants.
23. August 2016
Professor Anne Neville awarded
Many congratulations to our LifeLongJoints Partner, Professor Anne Neville, from the University of Leeds, who has been awarded the Leverhulme Medal for “revealing diverse physical and chemical processes at interacting interfaces, emphasising significant synergy between tribology and corrosion”.
She was further commended for “exceptional research which has enhanced the understanding of basic processes and addressed major industrial problems”.
Professor Neville will be presented with a gold medal at the Royal Society’s Anniversary Day in November 2016.
The award is supported by the Leverhulme Trust, established under the will of Victorian entrepreneur William Lever, and was first awarded in 1960 to mark the Tercentenary of the Royal Society. It is awarded triennially for “an outstandingly significant contribution in the field of pure or applied chemistry or engineering, including chemical engineering”.
Past winners of the Leverhulme Medal include Professor Sir Konstantin Novoselov FRS in 2013, who also won the Nobel Prize and Sir Martyn Poliakoff FRS in 2010.
2. November 2015
Not your average joint
No two people are alike, or walk alike, so LLJ partner Leeds Teaching Hospitals National Health Service Trust (LTHT) has been putting patient volunteers through their paces to get realistic movement patterns for developing simulation and test systems. In September, just under 100 hip replacement patients with friends and family gathered at Leeds University to hear how their contribution to the project has been used. Here, members of the LLJ team and testing volunteers talk about their involvement in developing better replacement joints.
21. September 2015
Double success for LLJ supported researcher Saurabh Lal! (updated)
LLJ supported researcher Saurabh Lal from Leeds University received two awards: One at the ISTA meeting (the principal conference for joint replacement) and one at MEIbioeng which is one of the UK’s largest gathering of Biomedical Engineers, Bioengineers and Medical Engineers.
ISTA meeting: Third prize for best early career E-Poster with Short Talk presentation at the 28th annual congress of the International Society for Technology in Arthroplasty 2015. The title of the short talk was “Biocompatibility of Silicon Nitride Nanoparticles and Cobalt Chromium Wear Debris From THR”. The award was given at the prestigious “Austrian Night” event held at the Vienna Town Hall.
ISTA is a non-profit organisation dedicated to the advancement of the art and science of joint replacement. Every year they host a congress where the best clinicians, engineers, researchers, and industry members from across the world come together to present and discuss leading works in the field of arthroplasty. In 2015 the conference was held at Vienna (Austria) from Sep 30th till Oct 3rd. It was a successful gathering of over 600 researchers, surgeons and industry members from 36 countries.
MEIbioeng: 1st prize for best osteoarthritis track poster at MEIbioeng15, with the poster titled “Isolation of Ceramic Nanoparticles and Metal Wear Debris from Serum Lubricants under Extremely Low Wearing Conditions”.
MEIbioeng is one of the UK’s largest gathering of Biomedical Engineers, Bioengineers and Medical Engineers, with participants from leading academic centres and the MedTech industry. The event was held at the University of Leeds 7-8 September 2015. The judges for the poster competition were internationally recognised scientists and experts in the areas of biomedical engineering and bioengineering.
Saurabh Lal’s supervisor, Professor Joanne Tipper explains “Current particle isolation methodologies are not sensitive enough to isolate the very low wear volumes produced by modern ceramic ceramic bearings or from ceramic-like coatings, as are being used within the LLJ project. In addition, they are often time consuming, costly and have less than satisfactory recovery rates. Here we have created a method that is 100 times more sensitive, is cost effective, quick and easy to perform. Furthermore, it does not require bespoke equipment and allows recovery of particles for use in biocompatibility studies. We are thrilled that the scientific community has recognised the importance of this work with the award of first prize for our poster presented at the MEI Bioengineering meeting recently”.
Saurabh Lal has been contributing to LLJ WP2 (Biological Assessment of Wear in Silicon Nitride Coatings) and also to parts of WP5 Assessment of Silicon Nitride Coating Performance In Vivo).
The LLJ team congratulates Saurabh and the research team at Leeds on another awarding winning piece of work!
