Irish university receives grant for brain aneurysm research

NEW techniques being developed at the University of Limerick are helping surgeons deal with complicated procedures such as brain aneurysms.

The Centre for Applied Biomedical Engineering Research (CABER) at UL was awarded a €100,000 grant as part of a €2.5 million programme of research on aneurysm behaviour.

The grant was given by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a state body in the US and one of the world’s foremost medical research centres.

The director of CABER, Dr Tim McGloughlin said: “The NIH is the federal focal point for medical research in the United States and competition for its grants is fierce. It is, therefore, a great acknowledgement of our research to receive this grant. We are also very proud of the fact it was one of very few grants awarded to Irish researchers.”

CABER was established in 2005 and currently has 12 full time researchers.

Dr McGloughlin said: “It was set up to bring together a multidisciplinary team of scientists and engineers to address problems in the field of biomedical engineering.

‘‘The centre, which holds five patents, has a range of projects underway including the development of revolutionary vascular grafts, which could prove to have great commercial potential, with international sales of vascular grafts amounting to about €350m per year.”

The centre was awarded the major grant as part of a consortium lead by Professor David Vorp, Associate Professor of Surgery and Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh.

Prof Vorp and Dr McGloughlin are collaborating on the five-year project that focuses on developing new ways of predicting rupture behaviour of aneurysms.

“An aneurysm is an abnormal localised bulge or swelling in an artery to a size greater than 50% of its normal diameter caused by a degeneration of the strength of the arterial wall. The incidence of aneurysm is steadily rising and aneurysm rupture is now the 13th leading cause of death in the USA,” said Dr McGloughlin.

As part of this project, the UL research team has increased its collaboration with the vascular surgery group at the HSE Mid-Western Regional Hospital.

Prof Pierce Grace, vascular surgeon at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital and head of surgical science at UL, said: “We are delighted to be working with the CABER team with whom we have collaborated for more than 10 years.”

The techniques developed at UL to provide three dimensional models of aneurysms are now being used to provide technical support to the vascular surgery team at the Mid Western Regional hospital and enables the vascular surgeons to have a clearer picture of an aneurysm prior to surgery.