3D printing maxillofacial implants win Collaborate to Innovate Awards held

renishaw-adeptAdditive-manufacture for Design-led Efficient Patient Treatment (Adept), a project that enables the widespread use of 3D printing to produce bespoke maxillofacial implants, has won the Health and Wellbeing category at The Engineer magazine’s Collaborate to Innovate Awards held. The collaborative project draws on the academic and industrial expertise of several UK partners, including global engineering and scientific technology company Renishaw.

Renishaw and partners will now present the winning project alongside the other category winners at the Collaborate to Innovate Conference, which will be held on November 17th at the Manufacturing Technology Centre in Coventry, UK.

Expert judges selected the winning projects based on innovation, collaboration and potential to influence their field by solving industry problems. The Adept project stood out because of its ability to revolutionise the way design and additive manufacturing are used in bespoke implant production by creating a new software product, which increases the level of automation in implant design.

Four UK partners have collaborated on the project; engineering company Renishaw, industry partner LPW Technology Ltd, leader in the application of computer-aided technologies (CAT) in maxillofacial surgery, the Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board and academic partner PDR located within Cardiff Metropolitan University, which led the project research. Adept is a three-year project funded by Innovate UK and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

“I’m pleasantly surprised and delighted that the project has won this award. It is further proof that cross-disciplinary collaboration can accelerate product development and is testament to the hard work of the project members,” explained Bryan Austin, Director and General Manager of the Medical and Dental Products Division at Renishaw. “Now I am keen to see ADEPT’s software put to use in the clinical area, helping to streamline implant design.”

“For me the value of the competition is in the collaboration,” explained Dawn Bonfield, CEO of the Women’s Engineering Society. “Using the strengths of different members of the teams to produce an outcome that is bigger than the sum of the parts is what it’s all about.”

Renishaw sponsored the Young Innovator Award category in the Collaborate to Innovate Awards. Bryan Austin presented the awards for Young Innovator for Design to the Nine Elms to Pimlico Bridge design project. Austin also presented the award for Young Innovator for Practical application to the winning project the Nuclear crane zoning system.

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