Michael R O'Donnell

Numerous scaffold materials have been developed for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications to replace or repair damaged tissues and organs. Naturally occurring scaffold materials derived from acellular xenogeneic and autologous extracellular matrix (ECM) are currently in clinical use. These biological scaffold materials possess i...

The development of atherosclerosis in the carotid bifurcation of the cardiovascular system has been the subject of much investigation. The carotid bifurcation is a prevalent area for atherosclerotic plaque build-up (Sakata et al., 1988). The performance of minimally invasive treatment of this plaque build-up has been below expectations. There is an...

Carotid endarterectomy (CEA) is currently accepted as the gold standard for interventional revascularisation of diseased arteries belonging to the carotid bifurcation. Despite the proven efficacy of CEA, great interest has been generated in carotid angioplasty and stenting (CAS) as an alternative to open surgical therapy. CAS is less invasive compa...

Purpose To develop an improved methodology for investigating the parameters influencing stent-graft migration, with particular focus on the limitations of existing methods. Methods A physiological silicone rubber abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) model for fixation studies was manufactured based on an idealized AAA geometry: the model had a 24-mm ne...

Migration of endovascular stent grafts for abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a serious complication that can result in aneurysm sac repressurisation and rupture. Secure fixation of stent-grafts in the proximal neck and the iliac legs is crucial to prevent this complication. We outline an in vitro method of investigating the resistance to migration...

A range of silicone rubbers were created based on existing commercially available materials. These silicones were designed to be visually different from one another and have distinct material properties, in particular, ultimate tensile strengths and tear strengths. In total, eleven silicone rubbers were manufactured, with the materials designed to...

Microfluidic solutions offer the possibility of minimizing time-to-result, reagents and labour costs of molecular diagnosis, while improving their quality and accuracy. The use of droplets as microreactors represents one of the points of focus of this research. The current paper presents a geometry, referred to as a ‘two-way liquid bridge’, for dis...

Cardiovascular disease of major and minor arteries is a common cause of death in Western society. The wall mechanics and haemodynamics within the arteries are considered to be important factors in the disease formation process. This paper is concerned with the development of an efficient computer-integrated technique to manufacture idealized and re...