Frugal and biomedical engineering for low-resource settings - Engineering Design - Healthcare Technologies

The medical device market is continuously growing, at higher rates than the related fields of pharmacological and biotechnologies. In 10 years, 2010-2019, the number of Medtech patents granted each year by the European Patent Office doubled. Currently, over 85% of the world MD market share is owned by upper middle- and high-income countries (US, Europe, China, Japan, and Canada), with the US and Europe accounting for 70%. These countries set de facto standards that cannot be taken for granted in low-resource settings (LRSs). When MDs designed following these standards, i.e., adequate for high-resource settings, are used in LRSs, their safety and effectiveness is hindered, because the operating context of the device is not guaranteed. Therefore, patients and users' safety can be seriously compromised. In addition to this, as of now, the medical device industry is lagging behind others (e.g., automotive) in terms of sustainability and its impact on the environment and life on land.

This project will build on previously created frameworks for the assessment of medical locations in LRSs as well as the design of medical devices resilient to these settings. It will aim to further investigate how a contextualised and frugal engineering approach, along with mHealth, eHealth, 3D printing and protocycling can be used to overcome some of the major challenges. The project will start off by expanding already existing frugal medical device concepts, such as a smartphone app for screening for diabetic neuropathies, to bring them to higher readiness levels. The project also has room for further case studies that can be proposed by or discussed with the candidate. Finally, this project will also be looking at how the medical device sector could be made more sustainable also with a frugal engineering approach