Professor Sheila MacNeil
We were honoured to have as our guest Prof Sheila MacNeil CMBE, who is Emeritus Professor of Tissue Engineering at the University of Sheffield, and has particular expertise in biomaterials and tissue engineering with more than 500 published research articles to her name.
We are fortunate to have many retired medics among our members so that the subject and terminology in Sheila’s talk would not be entirely unfamiliar to them. For those less blessed with medical knowledge I will attempt to precis this morning’s talk.
Her talk given posed a number of questions the main ones being:
Is it possible to combine an interesting career in research with a busy and rewarding family life?
How do you develop new materials to treat important clinical problems in a cost-effective fashion?
In attempting to answer these questions she focused on three main areas of her research namely:
Tissue engineering of skin
Damaged skin can be caused by many factors –such as: – burns, diabetes and wounds which fail to heal satisfactorily.
Focusing on patients in particular with extensive burns (40% or more of the body surface) where surgeons cannot find remaining skin to help replace skin cover over the burnt areas. She developed a product which was commercialised by the university as a product called MySkin. This involved growing normal skin cells in a ‘clean room’ allowing skin cells to be transferred from clean parts of the body to areas which have been burnt with remarkable results. Thereby saving lives and reducing scarring and deformities. The cost to establish a clean room can be £150,000 and its ongoing maintenance and registration fees can easily be £50,000p.a.
Another important use of this technique was the ability of healing the most recalcitrant to healing chronic post diabetic and other wounds which had failed to heal over years in up to 70% of cases
Tissue engineering of the cornea
Corneal scarring leading to complete loss of eyesight is another area where tissue engineering has made great strides. In conjunction with Dr Virender Sangwen LVPEI of Hyderabad, India. Sheila has developed techniques that minimise the prior use of amniotic membranes which were costly and time consuming. It is now possible to use the body’s own corneal cells from the so-called limbus of the eye to effect excellent results. Many people have had their sight restored in part funded by an Indian film maker who realised cured patients could now see his films! The Welcome Foundation also backed this project which can provide restoration of eyesight at 10% of the cost of previous techniques.
Biomaterials and tissue engineering for the pelvic floor
Prompted by the many failings of polypropylene mesh in the repair of Pelvic Organ Prolapse and as treatment for stress incontinence, which had been used successfully in abdominal operations. Research into new materials was essential. Most women over the age of 50 suffer with stress incontinence and most will require surgery. Many thousands of women have suffered intolerable pain as the polypropylene mesh is rigid and not suitable for implantation into the pelvis of a patient and breaks down as evidenced by landmark research in Sheffield. Research into new materials for this area of surgery utilised many classic engineering techniques on potential new materials. Developing new materials using advanced Electrospun Fascia Mimetic methods, a polyurethane mesh has been developed which has undergone extensive stress testing with results examined under electron microscopes. Potential materials were tested on animals and in an innovative sheep model developed in Sheffield. It is hoped that this work will result in a new treatment for stress incontinence to replace the previous gold standard of care which was the mid-urethral sling procedure which has resulted in many lawsuits and which has been banned for use in the UK.
The answer to her question was a resounding YES. It is possible to be involved in successful research and have a happy family life. It takes stubbornness, hard work, perseverance and above all a sense of humour!
PJ
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