The upper human airway related problems have been recently recognised as a problem affecting a significant portion of the human population all over the world. One of the major human airway diseases is 'sleep apnoea', a sleep related disorder. A patient with a severe sleep apnoea can develop hypertension and severe heart disease including pulmonary hypertension, in addition to sleepless nights, traffic accidents, failure to work in the environment and marital disharmony. Though some treatment methods have been developed, they are not always user friendly and enforcing these treatment methods is difficult. Thus, no wonder that development of alternative treatment methods and improved diagnosis methods have been undertaken by many clinicians. Though many clinical trials have been conducted on human airway related problems, the understanding of the human airway diseases is far from satisfactory. The proposed 'patient specific' computational modelling, however, is expected to develop an excellent understanding of the human airway collapse, one of the major reasons for human airway diseases. The patient specific scans and some experimental flow, displacement and pressure measurements will be provided by the collaborating clinicians, who are dealing with human airway problems on a daily basis. The scans will be transformed into human airway geometries with the help of clinicians and relevant software. The collaborating clinicians will help the engineering scientists to differentiate the human airway walls and muscle from the air space. The skeleton of the geometry will be constructed using curves and surfaces. Once the geometries are extracted, a linear tetrahedron finite element mesh will be generated using the in house mesh generator. The mesh will be then used in the fluid and solid dynamic calculations. With the coupled analysis of the air and solid movement, it is expected that the model will be able to pinpoint the location/locations of human airway collapse. The majority of the software required for the analysis will be developed within the applicant's institution and some of them have already been developed. For geometry extraction standard software referred to as 3D-DOCTOR will be used in addition to the in house software. Fluid and solid dynamic calculations will be carried out using the finite element based in house turbulent flow and viscoelastic solid codes. The development of these tools for the human airway and coupling of the proposed software are expected to be completed by the fellow within the first three years of the proposed research. The last two years of the project period will be spent to generate more patient specific data to create a data base for airway collapse analysis. Towards the end of the project a correlation between various human airway parameters such as flow rate, pressure distribution, characteristic dimensions of nasal passages, tongue, uvula and neck, airway muscle tone (muscle properties), position of sleep (gravity) and obesity factor of patients and human airway collapse will be developed. This correlation will be put together in a spread sheet form so that practicing clinicians will be able to use the software to assess human airway related diseases. All human airway problems of interest such as sleep apnoea and new treatment methods, throat cancer and speech therapies, air way corrective surgeries etc. are within the remit of the proposed project.The outcome of the proposed project will benefit enormously the clinicians dealing with human airways, patients with airway problems, computational mechanics researchers and academics all over the world.

We propose a research platform which will explore and underpin the development of new, integrative diagnostics based on a comprehensive analysis of blood. The integration of rheological and cytometric measurements is essential to the understanding of blood as a sophisticated tissue system in which biological mechanisms, initiated and controlled by cells, interact with complex fluid dynamics. The aim is to provide an appropriate technological platform which will provide biomarkers for the detection and analysis of pathological or therapeutic modifications of blood. These research aims demand multi-disciplinary skills, significant crossover of staff between academic and clinical environments and high risk, exploratory science - all aspects appropriate to the underpinning support of a platform grant.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

Thromboembolic disease and associated blood coagulation abnormalities cause significant morbidity and mortality in Western society, with stroke being the third leading cause of death in the UK. The incidence of stroke increases markedly with age and is often higher in socially deprived areas. In stroke, the processes of endothelial and vascular damage, activation of the coagulation cascade and decreased fibrinolysis result in abnormal clots, often with excessively cross-linked fibrin networks. An unsatisfactory aspect of work in this area is that the microstructures of such clots are usually reported in only adjectival terms (e.g., dense or tight ) - usually on the basis of a visual inspection of fragments of dessicated clots in SEM micrographs. Early detection of clots is vital. Early clotting events may contribute to a pro-thrombotic state which exacerbates the disease state and thrombotic states can be followed rapidly by haemorrhagic states due to adverse changes in clot structure. The available therapeutic options informed by early detection and characterisation are greatly enhanced.New technology is essential to address shortcomings in this area. This project will exploit our recent advances in blood clot detection and ultra-sensitive nanomaterials development for device applications to overcome these shortcomings. Under a Royal Society Brian Mercer Award and an EPSRC Portfolio Partnership Award, in collaboration with the NHS, we have developed a new haemorheological technique for the early detection and characterisation of blood clots. This has led to the discovery that the incipient clot's fractal microstructure is a biomarker for the conditions of clot formation, including therapeutic intervention. The significance of this discovery stems from the incipient clot's role as the microstructural template for ensuing clot development. In parallel work we have demonstrated the controlled reproducible growth of vertical arrays of ZnO nanowires and have confirmed their electrical current generation capabilities. Our Grand Challenge proposal involves combining this nanotechnology with our haemorheological work to develop the first point of care (POC) device capable of the early detection and characterisation of abnormal clots. By a point of care device we refer to technology suitable for widespread use outside hospitals (i.e., within pharmacies and surgeries) and which will ultimately be developed for use by patients at home. This will exploit the piezoelectric properties of ZnO nanowire arrays as a transducer to detect shear wave propagation within coagulating blood. Our aim is to drastically improve the sensitivity of early clot detection for more accurate assessments of (i) coagulation abnormalities and (ii) therapeutic targeting of abnormal clots at the earliest stage of development. The project involves in vivo and in vitro disease model (Stroke) work at University of London, and work intended to enable our device to perform a therapeutic function. In this way we propose to lay the foundations for a POC system for Patient Self Assessment and Patient Self Management in anticoagulant applications, in addition to a new technological basis for thromboembolic disease screening. The project also includes anticoagulated Stroke patient volunteers at Morriston NHS Hospital.We have a highly multidisciplinary Team with internationally leading expertise in rheometry and haemorheology; nanotechnology, nanomaterials and nanofabrication; nanomedicine and drug delivery; and human-device interaction aspects of medical instrument design. We have two partners. The first is the NHS who will provide clinical facilities and governance of clinical research. Our second partner is Boots Centre for Innovation (BCI) whose involvement anticipates healthcare provision involving POC applications in next-generation pharmacies. BCI's role is to inform design relating to customer needs/experience, the POC market and environment.

Over the last five years the interest in developing patient-specific numerical solution to human body related problems has grown tremendously. This is due to the fact that both computing power and appropriate tools needed to carry out such studies have been emerging over the last few years. Although there are a large number of difficulties remain to be addressed, the patient-specific numerical modelling has great potential to study and understand several aspects of human body related illnesses, which are otherwise not possible. For instance, a detailed and prolong flow structure near an aortic aneurysm is only possible via a fluid dynamics study. Such a flow pattern and associated forces will help the surgeons to plan a surgery on an aortic aneurysm. Patient-specific studies will also give us the post-operative conditions a priori to a surgery and help the clinicians to make decisions. Many other examples of biomechanics, respiratory systems and urinary tract can be studied in a patient-specific sense. In short, a patient-specific study constructs a full picture from minimum available patient-specific information.The proposed network will bring a group of people from different disciplines together to address the difficulties faced by patient-specific modelling community and support a faster growth in this area. The network will pay particular attention to exploring the possibility of providing support to NHS trust hospitals. At least four formal workshops will be held during the proposed period of the network to move the research forward in the area of patient-specific modelling. A dedicated webpage will be developed and hosted from Swansea. This webpage will have a robust database for registered participants to upload and share patient-specific modelling related material. All the attempts will be made beyond the project period to sustain the network. This includes conducting larger workshops, approaching other funding agencies, charities and private medical industries.