1
You joined QUT a year ago as Professor and Director of the Centre for Biomedical Technologies. What key opportunities is the centre currently focused on, and can you share some recent successes?
Partnerships. Clinicians have problems to be solved, and we have the scientists and engineers to solve them. Sometimes it’s just about putting these groups in a room together, a bit of funding, and watch the magic happen. We’ve had some great successes in the last year including formal partnerships now with The Prince Charles Hospital (TPCH) and the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital (RBWH) for collaborative and co-funded research programs. Also, international universities where they send funded PhD students here to work on our problems – so it’s culminated in a fairly significant financial gain for the centre too.
2
As co-Director of the Artificial Heart Frontiers Program (AHFP), you played a role in the groundbreaking success of the BiVacor titanium heart. What was your involvement, and what impact has this had on your career? How do you see this device shaping the future of cardiac care?
I can’t take any credit for the BiVACOR TAH! I’ve seen the early days of that device when Daniel Timms was my honours, masters and PhD supervisor and the work he and his team have put in. It’s incredible what they have done, and their team deserves all the credit. As for the AHFP, I get to co-direct a large national program alongside Prof David Kaye which is fantastic, and we are delighted that we could help support the Australian trial for the BiVACOR TAH. But again, the credit goes to that BiVACOR team for all their work. Being involved in a leadership position for such a massive program has certainly elevated my career quite rapidly, and I get to have plenty of discussions about things I never thought I’d be talking about! From the BiVACOR side, I think it’s a revolutionary device. While I think we ultimately need a suite of devices to address all problems with heart failure, their device has a very big role to play within that suite.
3
Research funding is constantly under pressure Australia and globally. What are Australia’s competitive advantages in research, and why has it excelled in heart-device technologies?
Research funding is tough. We’ve been very lucky in this space, and a lot of it started in the heart support space by a Prof called John Fraser who started this $2.5 million NHMRC CRE back in 2015. That grant was focused on these devices from the science, engineering and clinical perspectives and built the start of the ecosystem that we have today. As is typical, that success led to many more successes, so I think that’s why we’ve received several different large grants in this field. We are also highly competitive on an international level because of this ecosystem, because of our fantastic clinicians and clinical research, and because of a few exceptional engineering researchers that launched this field in Australia many years ago including the likes of Daniel Timms, Geoff Tansley and Mark Pearcy.
4
Collaboration is essential in research. What advice would you give to early-career researchers on fostering effective partnerships across disciplines?
It’s one of the most important things you can do. My work motto since my PhD days has been ‘work hard, make friends’ – the make friends’ part is just as important as working hard and smart. One of my best experiences was being an engineer who was ‘raised’ in a hospital throughout my honours, masters and PhD. Immersing myself in that environment, going up to the clinic all the time, seeing patients and surgeries and getting those patients into the engineering lab to talk about our work and sharing an office with clinicians opened my eyes to what the patients really needed. So, with that in mind, I recommend that young researchers immerse themselves into the environment. You’ll learn more from being there than you ever will from the literature, although of course the literature always has its part to play too!
5
What are some of the most exciting research opportunities in biomedical tech and where is the real blue sky?
For me I see the future as being fully integrated medical devices. And when I say integrated, I mean with all things – integrated within the body tissues but also integrated into our digital healthcare systems where real-time data is being fed to clinicians and anyone else that needs it. Where the device learns from the patient and adjusts its performance as required through control systems and AI. Where long-term implantable devices have integrated sensors that can detect other healthcare problems before they become a problem. I think we are getting there, but it’ll involve bringing a lot of different fields and people and all the parties including government, regulatory, industry, research and more altogether.
Emily Witts
April 2025
