How do you throw a good birthday party?
Have a nice big venue. Invite everyone. Fill it with music, lights, balloons, holographic displays of the respiratory system, computers you can control using your mind, interactive surgery games, giant inflatable colons.
Okay, so maybe the Auckland Bioengineering Institute’s 20th birthday party is a little bit different to the usual.
Jase gets ready to play 'relaxed birds' Photo: Claire Concannon
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“The ABI turned 20 at the start of Covid. We wanted to celebrate – of course we couldn’t, so now we are putting on this event and inviting the public in,” says Professor Merryn Tawhai, deputy director of the Auckland Bioengineering Institute (ABI).
Merryn explains that, although celebrations were pushed back a few years, they wanted to mark their two decades of research with style. So, they filled The Cloud on Auckland’s waterfront with displays, games and activities based on the work they do from 9 -14* May and opened it up to everyone.
Ngakorowai from Te Wharekura o Kirikiriroa was excited to learn about medical technologies of the future. Photo: Claire Concannon
The ‘Bioengineering the future’ event was a celebration of what the institute has been working on, and what it is working towards. Their research is wide ranging – from fundamental research into how the body works, to developing instruments to improve diagnosis and treatment of disease, to biomimetics and biorobotics.
One idea that they’ve been working on for some time is the concept of a ‘digital twin’. This would be an online model of a person, created using real data and tuned to exactly how that person’s body works. This means you would be able to ‘test’ things in advance on this digital twin. For example, testing if certain drugs work to help an individual, or not.
To create a digital twin – which models how all the body’s systems work together – you need fundamental understanding across molecular, cellular, tissue, organ and system scales.
Dr JC Han behind the work loop calorimeter, which allows him to investigate the energy used by heart tissue. Photo: Claire Concannon
Working to understand the heart at cellular, tissue and organ level is Dr JC Han. JC is focused on how the heart muscle contracts to pump blood around the body, and specifically how much energy it uses to do this. Working with rat animal models and a specific instrument developed at the ABI, JC wants to understand the efficiency of the heart muscle system, and what happens when things go wrong.
Listen to the episode to join the party, learn more about the concept of a digital twin, and hear JC explain the hidden physiology messages in some heart-related songs.
To learn more:
- In Crafty Mathematics Alona Ben Tal explained her work using maths to model the control of heart rate variability – the phenomenon that JC is now studying.
- Our Changing World has previously covered other research by the ABI including developing needle-free injections and pressure sensors for the brain.
- For more on heart health and a Centre of Research Excellence aimed at addressing inequities, listen to Business not as usual for heart health
*The audio incorrectly states that this event ran for five days, it ran for six.
