Innovation

The engine of economic growth

  • Mon 29th Mar 2021

Lord Sainsbury was Minister of Science and Innovation for seven years and achieved real terms increase in the national investment in science in each of those years. As a result the UK's science infrastructure was modernised and a series of initiatives built bridges between research and application. Lord Sainbury's recent book 'Windows of Opportunity' challenges conventional economic thinking and demonstrates that 'real' economic growth depends critically on innovation and policies to support it. Lord Sainsbury is currently Chancellor of the University of Cambridge

Lord David Sainsbury, University of Cambridge

Attending lectures

Full video

The lecture will be preceded by a short presentation from a CSAR PhD Award Winner.

Reproducing clinical readouts of cochlear implant recipients via a ‘3D printing neural network’ co-modelling method

Iek Man Lei, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge

Cochlear implants have become widely recognised as a solution for patients with profound hearing loss. The implants restore auditory sensation by electrically stimulating nerves, remarkably improving patients’ quality of life. Though its successful clinical outcome, the main problem with the current implants is the imprecise stimulation, causing off-target excitation of the neighbouring auditory nerves. The imprecise stimulation problem mainly depends on the electroanatomical features. As the current in vitro models are incomplete in evaluating the current spread in human cochleae, this study developed a ‘3D printing neural network’ co-modelling approach that captures the electroanatomical variability in human cochleae for predicting clinical EFIs. This approach is validated with clinical data. The versatility of this validated platform is demonstrated by producing patient-specific models with similar clinical readouts and estimating patient-specific cochlear resistivity.

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