Dr Vee San Cheong, Lecturer in Biomechanics in the School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, is one of 77 talented early-career researchers who have been awarded the coveted UK Research and Innovation’s Future Leader Fellowship (UKRI FLF) for her research on developing revolutionary 3D-printed orthopaedic implants for faster bone healing.
3D-printed porous implants offer a major opportunity to improve bone ingrowth and significantly extend implant life. Unlike a solid, bulk implant used in most joint-replacement surgeries, bio-functional graded orthopaedic implants act like a scaffold and their key feature is a porous structure that allows bone cells and blood vessels to grow directly into it, improving the longevity of the implant. The challenge, however, lies in a design that is both strong enough and encourages natural bone healing.
This research directly addresses this challenge, aiming to derive and predict the evolution of tissue growth into these implants across various time and length scales. This information will form the foundation for a platform to design, optimize, and assess novel bioactive implants with demonstrably improved clinical outcomes.
Dr Cheong, said: “One of the risk factors for early implant failure is younger age. As revision surgeries have successively poorer outcomes, this means that younger patients who need joint replacements often delay their surgery as long as possible. My research will improve treatment outcome through faster healing and fewer revisions, shorten the time-to-market for novel implants, allow patients to return to active lifestyle safely, which in turn would improve quality of life and costs to the NHS.”
Since 2018, the Fellowship has supported ambitious Early Career Researchers and innovators through their £120m programme, providing long-term funding and training to develop transformative ideas and become the next generation of world-class leaders in their fields. The fellowships are designed for those looking to establish or transition to independence, helping them to bridge the gap between academia and business and to work across different disciplines.
About the Fellowship Dr Cheong said: “I am grateful and excited to be given the opportunity to grow as a future research leader while solving challenging problems in Orthopaedics. The FLF is transformational as it provides the flexibility, time and resources for me to develop novel methodologies to improve understanding and to design the next generation of orthopaedic implants, and also to bring together people from different disciplines and backgrounds and deliver the benefits to patients.”
Professor Nikolaos Dervilis, Director of Research and Innovation of the School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, said: “This Fellowship is a fantastic accolade for Dr Vee San Cheong and, as a School, we couldn’t be happier for her. Vee's research is a great example of our School's talent and the wide range of our work, as it sits at the intersection of engineering and healthcare. Vee's fellowship will understand and predict bone ingrowth across time and length scale, to develop a platform to design, optimise and assess novel bioactive orthopaedic implants with improved clinical outcomes and we look forward to seeing her progress in this work.”
Dr Cheong has previously won the British Orthopaedic Research Society Young Investigators' Award (2019) and came to Sheffield as a Lecturer in January 2024 having previously worked at the Insigneo Institute as a Research Associate from 2018-2021. Her fellowship career vision is to be at the forefront of the design and analysis of novel bioactive implants, working collaboratively with clinicians, industry and patients to design safer and more effective treatment interventions.
Also honoured from the University of Sheffield were researchers Mr Jonathan Eyre from the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre and Dr Sarah Frank from the School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities. Read the full official announcement by the UKRI.