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Latest news from the Biomechanical Engineering Group
Lead Editor at IJERPH
SEP 2020
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601; CODEN: IJERPH; ISSN 1661-7827 for printed edition) is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed open access journal published semi-monthly online by MDPI. It covers Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Public Health, Environmental Health, Occupational Hygiene, Health Economic and Global Health Research, etc. Professor Elsheikh is the Lead Editor of a special edition of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health on ocular biomechanics. The volume is due to be published before end of 2019.
Collaboration with Beihang University
SEP 2020
Beihang University (previously known as Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics) was founded on October 25, 1952. Over the past century, Beihang has cultivated a good spirit of “hard work and plain living, diligence, all-round development and bold innovation” that passed down from generation to generation, and it will also be carried forward into the future. From July 2018, Professor Elsheikh has accepted to become a member of the Advanced Innovation Centre for Biomedical Engineering hosted by Beihang University, Beijing. Since August 2019 Professor Elsheikh became a member of the International Advisory Committee established by Beihang University, Beijing, to support the Biomedical Engineering Discipline and improve its academic standing.
Advisory Board of Optimo Medical AG
SEP 2020
Optimeyes is a software for the patient-specific planning of eye surgeries. They are incredibly fascinated by the latest technology options available nowadays for patients’ benefit. Thanks to their know-how in biomechanics of the cornea and digitalization they have developed a software that creates a digital twin of the eye within minutes. This digital twin is a precise, virtual copy of the eye of a patient. Based on it, surgeons can dry run the surgery in advance and thus predict the results of the intervention accurately. Professor Elsheikh has been a member of the Advisory Board of Optimo Medical AG, a Swiss company specialising in optimisation of medical procedures, since 2016.
Outreach and ESPRC Peer Review
SEP 2020
Professor Elsheikh hasbeen a member of the EPSRC Peer Review College for a few years. Also, he has been invited to join the Speaker Network, a body that involves most of the big names in ophthalmology research and practice in the UK, and aims to raise awareness of sight loss and current eye research, and raise money in support of research projects. Over the first 16 months of operation the Network has reached out to over 5,700 eye health professionals, patients and members of the public. Professor Elsheikh joined the Network in March 2016.
Consultant with Oculus Optikgeräte GmbH
SEP 2020
OCULUS has been a trusted partner for eye care professionals around the world. With the highest attention to detail, our devices are designed and manufactured at the OCULUS headquarters, located in Wetzlar, Germany. Thanks to our 11 subsidiaries in Europe, Asia and America, and more than 200 distributors in over 80 countries, OCULUS is accessible to all customers around the globe. Professor Elsheikh is a consultant with Oculus Optikgeräte GmbH, a major Germany company specialising in ophthalmology medical devices since 2016.
Congratulations to Ashkan Eliasy
MARCH 2019
Congratulations to Ashkan Eliasy for winning the overall postgraduate poster prize among 100+ presenters at UoL. The aim of this study was to evaluate the regional variation in response to vibrography in Healthy and Keratoconic corneas. Keratoconus is a progressive noninflammatory corneal disease that reduces the vision by distorting the corneal geometry. It is known that the distortion is caused by alteration of material properties to a softer grade which also results in thinning and deformation under IOP. This commonly observed as being bilateral with asymmetrical progression. It usually begins at puberty and progresses for the next two decades.
Outstanding KTP Project
APRIL 2018
We are very pleased that our KTP Partnership with UltraVision has been graded by a panel of independent assessors as Grade A (Outstanding). Congratulations to the research associate Dr Ahmed Abass, the academic supervisor Dr Steve Jones and the project leader Prof Ahmed Elsheikh. The project, which ran from March 2014 to December 2017, developed state-of-the-art contact lenses for people suffering from vision loss due to irregular corneas. A suite of software codes was built to deal with all types of distorted corneas. This now allows any corneal profile that can be measured by an eye topography device to be modelled in our advanced FE software. The original objective in the project was to prepare for the second generation of the company KeraSoft product However, the outputs obtained were designed to be flexible enough to be used for developing all the contact lenses produced by the company. This included the new generation of the KeraSoft lens and the recent product, Avanti (a monthly disposable contact lens).
Congratulation to Ali Aboulatta
MARCH 2018
Congratulation to Ali Aboulatta a member of BioEG who was the overall winner of the day for his poster on ‘Finite Element Modelling of Retinal Detachment’. The detachment of the retina is a serious condition that most likely to occur to elderly people; if left untreated, it can lead to complete or partial blindness. It occurs due to a tear in the retina that allows the passage of the vitreous to the space between the retina and the sclera. To make sure that the retinal detachment (RD) does not progress to the macula, reducing the growth of the RD is vital in the period between diagnosis and surgery. However, it is not known what loads on the eye contribute the most to RD progression. The aim of this study is to identify the role of the head and the saccadic movements on the RD progression.
Phakakorn Panpho Poster Presentation
MARCH 2018
Congratulations to Phakakorn for successfully progressing into the second year of her PhD journey and presenting the poster titled “Regional variations in the micromechanical and biochemical properties of the ovine aorta”. Investigation of the mechanical properties of the aorta is important for better understanding of aortic diseases such as aortic aneurysms and aortic dissection. While there have been previous studies examining regional differences in the structure and biomechanical properties of the aorta, little is known about how these properties vary across its entire length.
Clinical study success for novel contact lens device
OCTOBER 2017
Congratulations to Brendan Geraghty for the success in his clinical trials. A small-scale clinical study involved volunteers wearing the new contact lens device for more than an hour while under constant clinical observation. Read more
Summer placement 2017 with BioEG
AUGUST 2017
Congratulations to Yichao Shi and Yueguang Liu, students from the University of Toronto, on completion of their placement. They were trained in Matlab and Abaqus, and are now able to model complex numerical simulations.
Congratulations to Kike Moronkeji
JULY 2017
Congratulations to Kike Moronkeji who has celebrated her PhD gradation. Kike’s PhD was funded by the Centre of Global Eco-Innovation and Renephra Ltd, and focused on evaluating microneedle performance in relation to skin biomechanics.
Congratulations to Zhou Dong
DECEMBER 2016
Zhou Dong, a PhD student with the Biomechanical Engineering Group, submitted a poster at the end of his first year with the title “Microstructure based numerical model of ocular globe”, which won the second prize with the School of Engineering, amongst over 100 other entrants. He has done remarkable work in a short period of time, which attracted the attention of many researchers.
Retinal detachment numerical modelling
SEPTEMBER 2016
Jos Vroon travelled to Liverpool for his thesis project, which is a collaboration between the Delft University of Technology, Rotterdam Eye Hospital and University of Liverpool. His research is on the effect of gravity, head and eye movements on an existing retinal detachment. This project aims to understand the mechanics involved and improve the current pre-operative procedure.
Collaboration with Jilin University
AUGUST 2016
Dual PhD Student Zhuo Chang, along with his Liverpool and National Tsing Hua University supervisors, had a successful collaboration meeting with researchers at the Key Lab of Bionic Engineering, Jilin University, in August 2016. Zhuo presented his research on in vitro characterisation of arterial stiffening and discussed potential collaborative projects in cardiovascular biomechanics.
Collaboration with Wenzhou Eye Hospital
JULY 2016
Ahmed Elsheikh, Ashkan Eliasy, Sherif Hassaan and Junjie Wang visited the Ocular Biomechanics Group at Wenzhou Medical University on a trip funded by the Wenzhou group. Lab experiment facilities and test procedures were examined and modified, experimental results were obtained from in-house instruments, papers were reviewed, and projects discussed and planned for the future.
Congratulations to Dr Junjie Wang
JULY 2016
Junjie successfully completed his PhD on numerical simulation of corneal refractive surgery based on improved reconstruction of corneal surface. He is now working as a research associate at the Biomechanical Engineering Group at the University of Liverpool.
Corvis workshop in Barcelona
SEPTEMBER 2015
A research workshop was held to review progress on a new IOP correction algorithm that has been developed by the Biomechanical Engineering Group. The algorithm is intended to reduce reliance of IOP measurements by the Corvis ST on variations in corneal stiffness parameters including thickness and material mechanical properties.
Poster prize at Artery 15 conference
OCTOBER 2015
Congratulations to Dr Riaz Akhtar, who was recently awarded Best Poster prize at Artery 15 conference in Kraków. Riaz presented Zhuo Chang's work on the nanomechanical properties of the internal mammary artery. The work was conducted in collaboration with colleagues at University of Southern Denmark.
Inverse analysis operations software
JULY 2015
A new software is being developed by the group to carry out inverse analysis operations, which are necessary to determine the material properties from mechanical lab tests. The Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO) has been used as the optimisation engine of the new software. The results so far have been excellent.
Collagen cross-linking treatment
JULY 2015
Shao-Hsuan Chang started her work with the group a few months ago, with an exciting project to understand the biomechanical and microstructural effects of the collagen cross-linking treatment adopted to halt the progression of keratoconus.
Congratulations to Dominic Williams
JULY 2015
Dominic has completed his PhD with the group. His work has been on the automatic segmentation of optical coherence tomography maps in order to re-produce 3D shapes of the anterior segment of the human eye included the cornea and the limbus.