Cardiff University secures £1.2m funding for real life surgery project

Cardiff University’s School of Engineering has secured funding of £1.2 million for a project to simulate real-life surgery and reduce patient risk.

“RealTCut” is the 100th Cardiff University project to win an award under the European Union’s prime research funding scheme. The project has been awarded the grant by the European Research Council Starting Independent Grants scheme to develop it’s work on reproducing the effects of surgical cutting in real time.  

Professor Stéphane Bordas is leading the project, which combines work from Cardiff University with engineers, applied mathematicians and neurosurgeons from Australia, France, Belgium and Germany.

The team are carrying out pioneering research to lay the foundations for a new generation of simulators, which could reduce the risk to patients undergoing neurosurgery.

The project could also help doctor’s train across the world by developing algorithms to simulate real-life cutting into the brain.  

Professor Stéphane Bordas said: "Training is vital and new simulators are emerging to allow brain surgeons to practice their skills in a virtual environment, much as pilots do. Securing this European funding has been crucial in giving us the freedom to focus on key fundamental scientific blocks currently hindering progress.

”We believe RealTCut has the potential to help doctors training in this extremely difficult field. We hope in time that a surgical simulator can be developed which can combine accuracy with real time reproduction of cutting and other procedures."

Dr David Grant, Vice-Chancellor for Cardiff University said: "Securing our 100th award through the FP7 programme is a significant achievement and demonstrates how the University has led the Welsh participation in EU funding programmes.  The Programme has been and continues to be a strategically important vehicle through which the University has been able to support the development of the knowledge economy in Wales."

Welsh Government Minister for Business, Enterprise, Technology and Science, Edwina Hart said: "Our Science for Wales strategy has clearly highlighted the need for Wales to win its share of competitive external research and development funding so I am delighted to see Cardiff University secure its 100th award under the European Union’s prime research funding scheme.

"As this project demonstrates, the vital links between the research and science skills base in Wales, and the processes of innovation, development and commercialisation can transform scientific outputs of research into economic advantage for Wales."

Cardiff University has secured around £37 million across 100 projects from The European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).