New Biomedical Engineering Centre aims to bring engineers and clinicians closer together

After 17 years at the University of Oxford, he saw an opportunity to help build a new research environment in a region making major investments in healthcare technology.

"I am very fond of Oxford University and I benefited hugely from the 17 years I worked there. In Odense, I saw an exciting opportunity to help build something in a university and a region that is investing in my research area," says Stephen Mellon.

Stephen is Professor of Orthopaedic Biomechanics and a member of the management team at SDU Biomedical Engineering, established by Jeroen Bergmann, Head of the Department of Technology and Innovation.

The centre aims to strengthen research at the interface between engineering and health sciences while supporting the development of biomedical engineering as a discipline at SDU.

"When I first visited Odense, it seemed like a progressive city and an obvious place to establish a new biomedical engineering environment. The new hospital is being built next to the university, the region is investing in medtech, and SDU already has outstanding engineering research that we can build on."

Building a new research environment

Biomedical engineering research already takes place across several departments at SDU. The new centre aims to bring those strengths together and create new collaborations across engineering and the health sciences.

Within the centre, Stephen is establishing a new research programme in orthopaedic biomechanics. Supported by an 8 million DKK Novo Nordisk Foundation Starter Grant, the programme will recruit two postdoctoral researchers and a PhD student over the coming months.

"My research has always combined different branches of engineering to solve clinical problems. We use biomechanics, medical imaging, computational modelling, artificial intelligence and sensing technologies, depending on what is needed to answer the clinical question."

One of the programme's first research themes will build on technology that Stephen began developing in Oxford to measure joint motion using ultrasound. While the work in Oxford has focused primarily on the patellofemoral joint, the programme at SDU will extend the technology to disorders of the hip and develop an engineering pipeline that spans the patient journey from diagnosis through to surgical treatment.

"We're developing methods that allow us to measure how the hip and knee move during everyday activities using ultrasound. If we can measure joint motion accurately, we can begin to answer clinical questions that have been very difficult to study until now."

For the hip, the technology could improve understanding of femoroacetabular impingement (FAI), where abnormal contact between the ball and socket of the hip can cause pain and joint damage. Better measurements of hip motion could help identify which patients are most likely to benefit from surgery, improve surgical planning and, ultimately, support image-guided implementation of those plans in the operating theatre.

Stephen also continues to collaborate closely with colleagues in Oxford through a £1.3 million research programme running until 2028. He believes maintaining strong international collaborations will strengthen both his own research programme and the wider Biomedical Engineering Centre at SDU.

Another attraction of moving to Odense was SDU's internationally recognised strength in robotics.

"I've worked closely with robotics researchers in Oxford for many years, and that experience showed me how powerful those collaborations can be. Many of the clinical challenges we're interested in require expertise spanning biomechanics, robotics, computer vision, artificial intelligence and medical imaging. Having those strengths together at SDU creates exciting opportunities for new breakthroughs."

Starting with the clinical problem

Although Stephen's own background is in orthopaedics, he emphasises that the Biomedical Engineering Centre is not organised around individual clinical specialties.

"We want to be very application-driven. Everything starts by talking to clinicians and understanding an unmet clinical need. We then ask whether engineering can provide a better solution for patients."

Whether that solution involves imaging, computational modelling, robotics, artificial intelligence or new sensing technologies depends entirely on the problem being addressed.

Successful collaboration also means learning each other's language.

"Clinicians and engineers often describe the same problem in different ways. A surgeon might think in terms of anatomy, whereas an engineer naturally thinks in terms of three-dimensional coordinate systems. You have to accept that you won't understand everything the clinicians talk about, and they won't understand everything you talk about. The important thing is that everyone is working towards solving the same clinical problem."

Away from the laboratory, Stephen and his family have already settled into life on Funen.

"The winter was tough," he laughs. "But the children have settled in, and Odense already feels like a good fit for us. We cycle everywhere, and in that respect it actually feels quite similar to Oxford."