Cutting edge technology: ovipositors of sawflies as a model for better surgical scalpel
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Cutting edge technology: ovipositors of sawflies as a model for better surgical scalpel
Fri, 20/06/2025 - 14:00 to 14:30
Location:
Speaker:
Prof. Marc Desmulliez
Affiliation:
HWU
Synopsis:
Sawflies are insects that can be found on the top of buttercup flowers. As their names indicate, their sting (or ovipositors) are shape like saws and they use their sting as a way of cutting through the leaf of stems of plants to lay eggs whilst keeping the plant material intact. Recently, the Smart Systems Research Group, through the PhD work of Dr Marti Verdaguer, have discovered and explained the very complex mechanism behind the trade-offs between cutting efficacy of the saw, preservation of the plant and mechanical integrity of the ovipositor. Lessons are learned regarding future surgical scalpels. This talk will force you to change your point of view regarding these pesty insects.
Biography:
Prof. Marc Desmulliez, FRSE, FInstP, FIET, is former Associate Principal for impact, founder and manager of the £6M-funded Medical Device Manufacturing Centre (www.mdmc.ac.uk) and Professor in Smart Systems Integration at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. He has held grants of compounded value of more than £52M as Lead or co-Lead, published over 521 journal papers or conference proceedings articles, and holds 10 patents and 3 Design Rights.
He span out Microstencil Ltd in 2003, a spin-out company specialized in flip-chip bonding technology using stencil printing. The technology was transferred to DEK in 2011 and now is used in all mobile phones in the world. His second company, Microsense Technologies Ltd, aims at non-destructive testing using microwave sensing. This initiative got him the shared £90K first prize in the Converge Challenge 2016, arguably the most prestigious entrepreneurship award in Scotland.
His research interests include medical devices, microwave sensing and bio-inspired manufacturing, more precisely the understanding and translation of natural processes to manufacturing principles, an arguably new topic of research in engineering.