IMA Conference on Mathematics of Medical Devices and Surgical Procedures

摘要

An ageing population is driving demands for cardiovascular (e.g. replacement of heart valves, stents, by-pass), ophthalmic (cataract surgery, glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration (AMD)) and orthopaedic intervention. The purpose of the IMA Conference on Mathematics of Medical Devices and Surgical Procedures, held at University College London, 17-19 September 2012, was to discuss some of the significant developments in this area. The conference attracted 72 attendees. The emphasis was on how mathematics can be used to improve designs of medical devices and surgery. Applied mathematics embraces both experiments and computations, as well as rigorous modelling approaches - most international mathematics departments have fluids laboratories to test ideas and drive new ones forwards. The first was probably formally set up by GI Taylor in the basement of the old printing press of CUP (now DAMTP) doing research on materials, fluids and physics, and a similar tradition was adopted by the MIT Mathematics Department (Greenspan Lab in the 60s and now the Bush Laboratory), Bristol, Birmingham and more recently Oxford (and many others). Essentially there is very little to distinguish an engineering and mathematics laboratory.