Computational Simulation in Medicine and Surgery – Selected Applications, with focus on Microvascular Haemodynamics Seminar

Speaker information

Mr Richard A J Wain, University of Birmingham. MB ChB MRCS(Eng) MSc(Res) PGCert(Med Ed) Richard Wain is a senior trainee in plastic surgery with an interest in reconstructive surgery for oncological and traumatic defects. He qualified from the University of Manchester in 2006 and, to date has completed his surgical training across the North West of England. He has a long-standing interest in clinical academia and research, with over 25 peer-reviewed publications in the last 7 years. Richard is currently undertaking a Research Fellowship at the Institute of Translational Medicine, University of Birmingham, and is a member of the Computational Mechanics Research Group at the University of Central Lancashire. Richard’s research is centred on exploring local haemodynamics in microvascular anastomoses. He uses a combination of computational simulation (ANSYS-CFX) and surgical training models in an attempt to identify flow phenomena contributing to intravascular thrombus formation. He was awarded an MSc by Research from the University of Central Lancashire (2012) for his initial work on the subject, funded by a £10,500 grant from the Rosemere Cancer Foundation. Since then, alongside surgical training, Richard has continued to develop his simulations to make them as physiologically and clinically relevant as possible. It is the aim of his work to identify optimum flow characteristics and recommend improvements to surgical technique. Richard is also keen to explore novel anastomotic devices, which could ultimately reduce failure rates.

Dr Justin P M Whitty , University of Central Lancashire. BEng(Hons) MPhil MIMechE PGCE MSc(Dist) PhD CEng Justin Whitty is a Senior Lecturer in mechanical engineering and leads the Computational Mechanics Research Group at the University of Central Lancashire. He completed his MPhil at UMIST in Finite Difference Modelling (FDM) of polymer friction welding part-time whist completing his professional training in Mechanical Engineering at Bombardier-UK, where he specialized in wing-flutter and Finite Element (FE) modal analysis. He completed his PhD in the thermo-mechanical properties of auxetic materials at the University of Bolton in 2003. He then completed a three-year Post-doctoral research fellowship jointly at McLaren Formula-1 and the University of Bolton investigating the crash-performance of quasi-isotopic laminate composite materials. He joined the University of Central Lancashire in September 2008 as a Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering where he began to develop cellular solid modelling protocols to investigate bone fracture propagation using sophisticated death of elements procedures resident within ANSYS. He took over leadership of the Computational Mechanics Research Group, which contains 10 Academic members of staff, 2 members of support staff, 6 researchers, 3 MSc research students, and 7 industrialists in 2013. Over the last four years the group has produced some 50 full refereed journal papers, 5 book chapters and 4 review articles relating to engineering simulation across a number of fields including Medical Engineering, Composite and cellular materials, Nuclear Engineering & Design, Predictive Reliability, Heat Transfer and, Thermodynamics. Dr Whitty has a particular interest in computational simulation for medicine and dentistry and has supervised PhD and MSc research projects to completion. He has recently been asked to sit on the University of Central Lancashire's REF panel for Engineering, and has taken over leadership of the MSc in Mechanical Engineering.