Dr S Williams

Current surgical intervention for patients with osteoarthritis of the hip usually involves total hip replacement surgery, with the loss of large sections of bone and cartilage. However, improved imaging techniques to detect the disease earlier and moves towards less invasive surgery has led to interest in more conservative alternatives. One option is tissue substitution, where only the diseased tissue is substituted. The research conducted in this RAEng fellowship will explore these novel alternative tissue substitution options.

A whole hip joint cartilage degradation simulator system will be devised to allow preclinical investigation of these solutions. This is ambitions, requiring the development of a tissue cell to create an environment to maintain cartilage viability for medium-duration tests. The wear and degradation of cartilage will be assessed following articulation.

Partial tissue substitution and tissue engineered constructs to repair the degenerated cartilage layer will be investigated through future collaborative projects with other groups who are currently developing new biomaterials and matrices.

Research Institute Membership

• Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering