Andreas A Melzer

Biography

Andreas Melzer completed his research and work in Germany at the University of Applied Sciences, Gelsenkirchen where he built up the first integrated teaching OR with MRI, CT and minimally invasive surgery workplace and completed a project on MRI guided heart valve implantation as visiting Professor at the National Institute of Heart Blood and Lung disease NIH, Bethesda Virginia.   Professor Melzer accepted the position as Founding Director of IMSaT in 2005, and began building up IMSaT collaborations in early 2006. As consultant to the University he conceptualized the IMSaT structure for commercialisation, and developed the layout for Wilson House and for the imaging research in the Clinical Research Centre at Ninewells Hospital, with the world’s first combination of a 3T MRI system, PET/CT and a surgical suite. He also assisted in preparing successful grant bids to the Wellcome Trust for the CRC and to the SFC for research pooling in the Northern Research Partnership in Engineering and Related Disciplines, in which he is Director of the Joint Research Institute in Medical Technologies (www.northscotland-research.ac.uk). IMSaT houses GE’s first European Centre of Excellence for MRI guided Interventions and Surgery including 1.5 Tesla MRI suite, and X-Ray arm. Fully equipped for interventional surgical research including the latest Focused Ultrasound system ExAblate (Insightec Ltd, Israel) with body and confomal system, and MR compatible Robotic Arm for percutaneous interventions Innomotion (Innomedic GmbH, Germany). The current IMSaT strategy developed by Professor Melzer is focused on a synergistic program of translational research of basic science in imaging-related physics and engineering towards novel biomedical and clinical applications.  In the field of photonics, ultrasound, surgical and interventional technologies IMSaT continuously develops excellence in science and research for high impact factor journal publications and aims to achieve an improved translation from “bench to bedside”.  Professor Melzer has more than 20 years experiences in the development of medical technology for laparo-endoscopic surgery, interventional radiology, interventional & intraoperative MRI and image guided robotics, surgical instrumentation, surgical robotics and Nitinol devices with more than 60 patents; over 200 publications; and more than 500 oral and poster presentations. He has served as co-editor of three medical journals, Co-founder and partner of six start-up companies in the medical technology business and consultant for major vendors in medicine. He serves as organizer and chairman of various medical conferences and is a Board member of six medical and technical societies. Professor Melzer is regularly invited to speak at international meetings and has been involved in the organisation of a number of major international conferences.

Research Interest

Professor Melzer has co-ordinated and established a biophotonics laboratory, supported by IAPP Nanoporation, with the Nanobiotechnology lab also partly supported by an equipment grant from the Mathew Trust and partly by EU funding. The establishment of an interventional MRI plus surgical suite and the above mentioned laboratories were supported by further ERDF grants totalling £6m which allowed Professor Melzer to establish a pre-clinical multimodality imaging research centre including photonics and pre-clinical MRI intervention unit for ultrasound contribution. A further component of funding was the MRI-guided focused ultrasound system Exablate as well as the establishment of Thiel soft embalmed pre-clincial research which is currently one of the major research initiatives at IMSaT. The unique model of Thiel soft embalmed cadavers provides additional pre-clinical research and testing opportunities for medical technology particularly in the human anatomy ultrasound MRI and x-ray and in addition the correct anatomy of a human body. Through the IAPP industrial academia partnership Marie Curie programme, he was awarded €2.5m in collaboration with InSightec and CapsuTech for the development of MRI-guided focused ultrasound-mediated targeted drug delivery. The initial training network Marie Curie programme’s total budget of €3.8m was awarded in 2009 and was ranked in the ten best proposals out of more than 2000 applications. The initial training network started in October 2009 and established the interventional MRI and image guided procedure development research at IMSaT. I co-ordinate collaboration across 10 centres throughout Europe with a total of 13 PhDs, 6 postdocs and 4 visiting experienced researchers.  The Thiel-embalmed cadaver programme is now supported by further grants - MRC DPFS and EU funding to assist in the development work of refunctionalisation of the cadavers to establish respiratory motion of organs and pulsatile flow in arterial and venus segments and organs. This project integrates well with the IIIOS training network. A further programme of work established in April 2011 on numerical modelling and simulation of moving organs for MRI- guided focused ultrasound is well integrated with the Nanoporation IAPP programme with a recent additional large integrational project ViaBBB (via the blood brain barrier) submitted to give a total budget of £15m Euros, led by ShebaMedical Centre Tel Aviv, Israel.