The Healthcare Technologies Institute (HTI) brings together leading experts from a variety of disciplines across BHP founder member the University of Birmingham – from chemical engineering, biomedical science and chemistry, to computer science, applied mathematics and physics. Researchers across campus are working collaboratively to speed up the translation of new discoveries into health applications for patients.
Research at the HTI supports the development of existing markets and stimulates new ones for small and medium sized life sciences businesses, enabling them to bring products to market quickly, at less cost, and with reduced risk.
“What we’re trying to do within this research institute is to create an environment and an infrastructure where we can take technologies that are at a very early stage of development, and move them rapidly through to clinical trial – and this is going to help patients at an early stage, but will also help local industries who are focused on the development of new medical technologies.
“We’re working broadly in three different themes within this research institute – the first thing is in regeneration. We’re also working with repair, and the early detection of a variety of diseases and pathologies.
“To give you one example of how infrastructure within the research institute is helping to move a technology through to patient benefits – we’re actually currently developing an eye drop which aims to prevent scarring following injury to the surface of people’s eyes.
“This eye drop has been shown to work in the laboratory, so what we’re doing now is we’re developing ways to deliver it better so that it can be more easily used by clinicians and hopefully have an impact sooner within the clinic, helping lots of people who would otherwise end up being blind.”
Our experts are working together to advance new technologies and treatments that enable people to live longer, healthier and happier lives. Our principal research interests include:
There is an increasing demand to deliver new technologies that allow us to more rapidly diagnose and better treat patients. Advances in medicine mean we are living longer than ever before, alongside our chances of survival following devastating, life-changing events. However, these successes lead to major challenges. We’ve extended life expectation, but there is no commensurate improvement in the quality of life to match the longer life-span. This demand has led to a rapid increase in the amount of research undertaken to develop new healthcare technologies.
Research is conducted in collaboration with University Hospitals Birmingham and the Medical Devices Testing and Evaluation Centre (MD-TEC).