Medical devices that cannot adapt to the body’s changing shape or condition—like a stoma bag that leaks when the abdomen moves, or a facemask that loses its seal when a clinician speaks—are failing patients because they are designed as static objects. This network-plus award aims to shift engineering thinking from three dimensions to four, building a community that designs devices with time-responsive properties that mirror how living tissues actually behave. The problem is that current healthcare technologies ignore the body’s constant adaptation to movement, ageing, and disease. Stents, implants, catheters, and wearable devices are typically rigid, which limits their lifespan and functionality. This network will connect engineers, clinicians, and patients to co-design devices that change shape, stiffness, or permeability over time. If successful, the project could transform everyday medical care: fewer leaks, better fits, longer-lasting implants, and devices that work for a wider range of body types and ages. The network will also seed-fund early prototypes and train a new generation of engineers in 4D design. While no specific device will be built under this award, the goal is to create the collaborative infrastructure and technical frameworks needed to make adaptive medical devices routine rather than rare.
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Numerous tissues within our bodies continuously adapt to environmental cues over time. In a healthy state this enables growth, movement and regeneration but these time dependent changes are also apparent in many diseases and as we age. However, when we engineer medical devices to replace or repair these tissues time responsive properties are not typically considered or incorporated. In fact, the current healthcare technologies ecosystem discourages these dynamic behaviours despite them being so integral to healthy tissue function. This lack of adaptability may compromise the functionality or limit the lifespan of healthcare technologies that are critical components of patient’s quality of life and wellbeing. For example, stoma bags that leak as the abdomen changes during movement or facemasks that do not maintain an airtight seal while a clinician talks to their patient. The aim of this network plus award is to inclusively transform engineering mindset into 4-dimensions enabling the innovation of a new dynamic medical device era. This will be achieved through a series of objectives: O1 Identify and connect expertise across the healthcare technologies ecosystem O2 Embed diversity into the network’s culture and activities O3 Educate and share best practice in enabling 4D functionality O4 Support progression of new ways of achieving 4D healthcare technologies O5 Promote and assist strategic funding bids from network members Through co-design of our network with various stakeholders we have identified key challenges to tackle in developing a community capable of bringing to life 4D medical devices. The first phase is to build our community through development of technical forums that shall support upskilling, knowledge exchange and promote dialogue. By centralising stakeholder co-delivery in our network’s model we will bring inclusivity to the forefront of medical device design and deployment. This will ensure that the 4D Health Tech era is one in which medical devices are designed for all through diverse data inputs, tested to account for natural physiological variations and trialled on varied sub-population groups. Seed-corn funding and the network’s innovation fellow will support the community bringing to life new 4D Health Tech capacity. Funds to enable our community members to mobilise and engage in new ways have also been requested. The network’s central team will build interactive resources to ensure that 4D Health Tech is an outward facing innovation hub committed to inspiring the next generation through its creativity as well as informing its stakeholders, including the public, about its progress. 4D Health Tech will ignite new technical frameworks for medical devices enabling them to function in novel ways that extend lifespan and offer patients improved outcomes. In creating this influential community we have carefully designed flexible and agile support mechanisms to ensure that it will be a beacon of diversity both conceptionally and in terms of its membership. As such this network plus award represents a springboard for meaningful change at a time in which fit for purpose medical devices will greatly impact national wellbeing and prosperity.
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