Bangkok--3 Feb--KMUTT
King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT)
SMART LAB, Faculty of Engineering, King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT) achieved numerous international innovation awards. It is revealed that the growth of health and medical research dramatically increased nearly 100% and be lining up for commercial progress.
Asst. Prof. Anak Khantachawana, Ph.D. Assistant to the President for Internationalization and Assistant professor at Biological Engineering Program / Departure of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT) stated that Thailand's imports of the medical device are 95% which is considered to be very high demand. Also, the price normally rises 1,000 times higher than actual price despite some can be researched and developed in Thailand.
It is demonstrated that confidence in our own products is an issue because we do not have enough confident in our own skin. Therefore, in order to make a progress, we have to figure out a process which could help to boost confident with doctors and patients towards our manufactured medical devices.
However, after Thai researchers have won more and more medical innovation awards from international stages, this caught Thai Government to pay more attention to this problem. As a result, the government takes a role in supporting research funding and formed the research with the mission to accelerate the development of the health and medical device for future commercial purposes. This originated an agreement on cooperation in the development of invention for commercial between Thai inventors and Thai entrepreneurs which could strongly encourage researchers to focus more on their valuable and helpful medical research and production.
SMART LAB, a KMUTT research team, swept tons of international innovation awards in the recent year. In the past, 50% of SMART LAB's research focused on actuator, sensors and materials technology due to their specialties. While 50% aimed at the development of health and medical device. However, recently, there had been a 90% increase in the research of health and medical device and the number of researchers rose over 2-3 times in the past year. Currently, there are 40 researchers work with the team.
It is said that the SMART LAB becomes well-known among Thai medical community from the discovery of Fabrication and Development of Shape Memory Alloys for Orthodontics and Medical Applications which brought an opportunity for the SMART LAB to work more on researching of the medical device. Late 2016, the SMART LAB achieved 6 of international innovation awards. 3 awards from 12th Taipei International Invention Show & Technomart (INST 2016); the Gold Medal from "Shape Memory Alloy Heat Engine for Electricity", the Silver Medal from "Surface Modification of Implant Materials by Fine Shot Peening (FSP)" - Special Prize from Association of Polish Inventors and Rationalizers, Poland and the Bronze Medal from "ASD Occluders from Shape memory Alloys"
They earned 3 more awards from 10th International Warsaw Invention Show (IWIS 2016), Warsaw, Poland; the Gold Medal from "Design and Development of Stentretriever from Smart Materials " - Special Prize จาก Romanian Inventors Forum : FIR, Romania and Association of Polish Inventors and Rationalizers, Poland, the Silver Medal from "Hair Loss Treatment by Laser Stimulation" - Special Prize (On Stage) from Toronto International Society of Innovation & Advanced Skills : TISIAS, Canada and the Bronze Medal from "New Innovation of Titanium Alloys for Medical Devices" - Special Prize from The First Institute of Inventors and Researchers of Iran : FIRI, Iran.
The SMART LAB has been also inventing other innovations that could expand to the future commercial purposes. For example, LED device for Alzheimer treatment and a distractor device that helps to move the jaw for cleft patients, etc.
"There is an example of what we have done. Fine Shot Peening (FSP) is a technique we use to improve our efficiency in medical equipment. We have produced thinner and lighter implants which help to resolve risks and side effects of breaking and loosing the equipment inside the human's body. FSP is a kind of technology which can be seen in production car racing and production motorcycle racing. From that, we are able to produce porous, lighter and more substantial implants. We eliminate all elements that are toxic to the human body. This implant is approved by the human cadaver lab and is under animal testing for medical device development before the clinical trial. It is predicted that this medical implant will be officially produced for commerce within 2018. Even though its average selling price is probably not cheaper more than 50% to the previous method, it will be added in the 30-baht universal healthcare scheme." Asst. Prof. Anak said.