Advanced Nickel-Titanium Alloys for Medical Device Applications

forthcoming

MEDALLOY is an Industrial Doctoral Network that will provide world-class interdisciplinary and intersectoral training to 9 Doctoral Candidates (DCs) through an international consortium across 6 countries. Nitinol is a unique material with remarkable superelastic and shape memory properties and is critical for innovative cardiovascular devices, addressing the healthcare needs of Europe’s aging population. MEDALLOY targets key challenges identified by our industry partners through its research objectives: develop superior Nitinol alloys with enhanced performance; optimise manufacturing processes to control material microstructure; advance defect tolerance and fatigue life prediction; and create validated simulation tools. MEDALLOY combines the proven expertise of its consortium members, cutting-edge industrial-scale facilities, and an ambitious research plan to push Nitinol research beyond the state of the art, enabling the next generation of Nitinol medical devices and opening possibilities for new innovative solutions. Supported by the industrial participants from across the medical device value chain, all DCs will develop a clear roadmap for commercialisation and exploitation of their research. Our innovative scientific methods, built on key recent patents and publications from across our consortium, will provide an excellent training environment for the 9 high-achieving DCs. Our comprehensive training plan, including network-wide and local actions, will build on the research-based training and include contributions from our clinical, industrial, and academic participants. In addition to technical research training in all stages of the medical device value chain, MEDALLOY will deliver interdisciplinary training to DCs in clinical trials, ethics, sustainability, communication, and entrepreneurship that will enhance career development and promote their development into leading innovators in the European Nitinol Medical Device sector.