2016 SR and ES Report BME A5

Division of Biomedical Engineering Annual Report on Social Responsiveness and Engaged Scholarship 2015 - 2016“Our Mission is to be an outstanding teaching and research university, educating for life and addressing the challenges facing our society.”

Needs Assessment Seminar with Occupational Therapists from Western CapeRehab Centre in Mitchells PlainreScribe™ is a virtually incubated company within the Medical Devices Lab. The deviceis based on UCT’s patent pending technology on Hand Exoskeleton invented by Mr.Yasheen Brijlal, Dr Lester John and Dr Sudesh Sivarasu. Members of reScribe met withoccupational therapists from Western Cape Rehab Centre (WCRC) in Mitchells Plain.This initiative gives researchers from UCT access to Provincial rehabilitation facilities,and the opportunity to engage clinicians in government facilities to use technologicalinnovations such as reScribe™.Key thematic issues: Stroke at early age, handwriting rehabilitation, remotetechnological intervention, joint funding application. Nature of external constituenciesinvolved: Occupational therapists from Western Cape Rehab Centre. Nature ofrelationships with external constituencies: Needs assessments and jointconceptualisation of a future project. Assessment of impact: The initiative has openedup discussion for identifying further unmet clinical research needs from the facility, whichcould feed into the medical device design course taught in BME. The impact will beassessed through the collaborative efforts that have taken place since this initiative. Anexample is the already submitted joint MRC-SHIP application. If successful, the grantmay facilitated pre-clinical trials. Further research is expected lead to joint publications. 2

Promotion of Awareness of Scientific Careers Amongst Female School Learnersin the West Coast Region of the Western CapeDr Frances Robertson participated in the West Coast National Science week events (10thand 11th August 2016) for school learners in Clanwilliam and Malmesbury districts, whichinvolved presenting an overview of her research career and focus and engaging indiscussion with female high school learners.Key thematic issues: School learners, women in science, community outreach,sustainable health, biomedical engineering, HIV, foetal alcohol spectrum disorders,neuroimaging. Nature of external constituencies involved: Department of Scienceand Technology (DST), Association of South African Women in Science and Engineering(SAWISE), secondary schools in Clanwilliam and Malmesbury districts. Assessment ofimpact: Impact will be assessed through feedback from the schools involved andSAWISE. 3

Engagement with High School Learners from Designated Groups to Attract Themto Careers in Science, Engineering and TechnologyThis is a new initiative spanning across departments and faculties. The first event is aworkshop on biomedical engineering for 100 grade-10 learners from 20 secondaryschools in Khayelitsha was held in September 2016 at the Faculty of Health Sciences,UCT. The workshop was conducted in collaboration with UCT’s School DevelopmentUnit. It contributes to the 100up project which is based on one of the five objectives ofthe School Improvement Initiative supported by the VC. The grade-10 learners are intheir first year of the 100up programme. During the half-day workshop, the learners willbe exposed to different aspects of biomedical engineering and related disciplines at thevarious units/sites involved, including medical device development, orthopaedicbiomechanics, medical imaging and image processing, biomaterials, and computationalmodelling.Nature of external constituencies involved: 20 secondary schools, Khayelitsha. CSIRCentre for High Performance Computing, Rosebank. Strait Access Technologies Pty Ltd.Simulia Dassault Systèmes, USA. Simpleware Ltd, UK. Further external constituencies,e.g. companies involved in biomedical engineering, may be involved. Nature ofrelationships with external constituencies: Relationships with external constituenciesare manifold and includes joint conceptualisation with schools and industry, contributions(in kind) of industry partners to the events and feedback from all external partners. Theinitiative will thrive through feedback from all external partners to enhance the initiativeas it grows. Assessment of impact: Impact is assessed through UCT’s SchoolDevelopment Unit as part of the School Improvement Initiative and feedback from theexternal constituencies involved. 4

Engagement of Community Partners with Students from Health Innovation toIdentify Solutions to Health ChallengesUnder the auspices of the Groote Schuur Innovation Initiative in 2014, an intern namedDr Wafeeqah Mohammed designed and prototyped a medication storage bag inresponse to her experiences with patients who had trouble managing, storing andkeeping track of their many medications for multiple medical conditions. The students ofHealth Innovation and Design (HUB5031F), a Masters course within the Department ofHuman Biology at UCT, offered improvements on the bag by incorporating more patientand nurse insights. They also developed novel solutions centred on insights gained fromthe Diabetic Clinic at the Groote Schuur Outpatients Department. The HUB5031F courseutilises user-centred design to teach innovative thinking around Health. User-centreddesign encourages low fidelity prototypes and early feedback from multiple stakeholdersin order to arrive at the most appropriate solution. This project is consistent with UCT’sacademic and institutional objectives with respect to more socially responsive researchthat engages the community in a more meaningful way. The Health Innovation programwas developed to not only train a cadre of students that think empathetically with a user-focus, but also to create solutions to health problems that meet the needs of that partnerorganization more fittingly.Key thematic issues: Patient education, co creation, service learning, user-centreddesign, chronic disease management. Nature of external constituencies involved: DrWafeeqah Mohammed. Groote Schuur Hospital, (staff and patients). Nature ofrelationships with external constituencies: Interviews, obtaining feedback, analysisof data gathered, building on existing ideas and knowledge. Length of relationships:Three months, ongoing. Dominant form of the engaged scholarship: Teaching andResearch. Dominant mode of engagement: Applied research. Nature of the outputs:Refined prototype of the Pillbox, incorporating feedback from community. New solutionsto address the problems the students uncovered. Formal presentation to stakeholders.Draft a project reports. Students with skills to empathise, think innovatively and a broaderappreciation of the user needs. Assessment of impact: Feedback from stakeholders. 5

The Living Heart Project – A Public-private Partnership to Accelerate Researchand Translation in Cardiovascular Diseases and TherapiesThe Living Heart Project is uniting cardiovascular researchers, educators, medicaldevice developers, regulatory agencies, and practicing cardiologists on a shared missionto develop and validate highly accurate personalized digital human heart models. Thesemodels will establish a unified foundation for cardiovascular in silico medicine and serveas a common technology base for education and training, medical device design, testing,clinical diagnosis and regulatory science —creating an effective path for rapidlytranslating current and future cutting edge innovations directly into improved patient care.The Living Heart Project is led by Dassault Systèmes Simulia, a multinational softwarecompany. The project current has 44 members from academia and research, 27members from industry, 6 clinician members and two regulatory members. A/ProfThomas Franz from our division is one of the academic members.Key thematic issues: Strategic research; innovation; translation. Nature of externalconstituencies involved: 27 international companies. 2 regulatory bodies. Nature ofrelationships with external constituencies: Relationships with external constituenciesinclude joint conceptualisation of activities with Dassault Systèmes Simulia and othermembers of the Living Heart Project, consultations and providing feedback. Length ofrelationships: One year, ongoing. Dominant form of the engaged scholarship:Research and Service. Dominant mode of engagement: Advice to external non-academic organisations; knowledge transfer; technical assistance. Nature of theoutputs: Computational models, research publications, collaborations. Assessment ofimpact: Impact is for example assessed through peer-review of research outputs. 6

Division of Biomedical Engineering Department of Human Biology Faculty of Health Sciences University of Cape Town Private Bag X3 Observatory 7935 South Africa Tel: +27 21 650 3093 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.bme.uct.ac.za7