EU Commission, Horizon 2020, INFRASUPP-01-2016: Policy and international cooperation measures for research infrastructures. Objectives: The project aims at creating an EU-Africa e-Infrastructure, UBORA, for open source co-design of new solutions to face the current and future healthcare challenges of both continents, by exploiting networking, knowledge on rapid prototyping of new ideas and sharing of safety criteria and performance data. The e-Infrastructure will foster advances in education and the development of innovative solutions in Biomedical Engineering (BME), both of which are flywheels for European and African economies. In collaboration with: University of Pisa, KTH, University of Tartu, Uganda Industrial Research Institute, Kenyatta University, Agile Works.
Andrés Díaz Lantada, is Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at ETSII-UPM. His research interests are linked to the development of engineering products, mechanical systems and biomedical devices with improved capabilities, thanks to the incorporation of smart materials, special geometries and complex functional structures, mainly attainable by means of additive manufacturing processes. He is currently (since June 2011) Deputy Vice-Dean for Student Affairs and International Relations at the School of Industrial Engineering at the Technical University of Madrid (ETSII-UPM), UPM Contact Researcher at the “European Virtual Institute of Knowledge-Based Multifunctional Materials (KMM-VIN)”, UPM Leader at the “COST Action NewGen: New Generation Biomimetic and Customized Implants for Bone Engineering” and UPM Leader at the “Tomax: Tool-less manufacture of complex geometries” EU-H2020 Factories-of-the-Future Project and at the “UBORA: Euro-African Open Biomedical Engineering e-Platform for innovation through Education” EU-H2020 Infrasupp Project. He has received the “UPM PhD Thesis Extraordinary Award” in 2010, the “UPM Teaching Innovation Award” in 2014, the “UPM Young Researcher Award” in 2014, and the “Medal to Researchers under 40” by the “Spanish Royal Academy of Engineering” in 2015. Since January 2016 he has the honor of being Member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the International Journal of Engineering Education. Since 2015 he takes the lead of the UPM’s Product Development Lab.
Juan Manuel Muñoz Guijosa is Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at ETSII-UPM. His research activities are linked to several fields of Mechanical Engineering, including vibrations theory, composite materials, microsystem technology and systematic product development. After his award-winning PhD he was visiting researcher at MIT and worked four years for Bosch GmbH linked to the automotive industry. Since his reincorporation to UPM he has been linked to subjects on “Mechanism and Machine Theory”, “Vibrations Theory”, “Engineering Design”, among others, and participated in several research projects. More recently he has been visiting research professor at the Technical University of Tokio (twice, one semester each time) and at Drexel University. He is very active in the field of project-based learning and leads UPM’s “Composites and Nanocomposites Lab”.
José Luis Muñoz Sanz is Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at ETSII-UPM. His research activities are linked to several fields of Mechanical Engineering, including most areas of machine security, machine performance assessment and systematic product development. He incorporates research results to subjects on “Mechanism and Machine Theory”, “Machine Design” and “Machine Security”, and participates in several public- and private-funded research projects, including a European project. He leads the “Mechanisms & Machines Lab” at ETSII – TU Madrid.
Julio Muñoz García is Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at ETSII-UPM. His research activities are linked to mechanical systems, vibration theory, tribological phenomena, biomechanics and biomedical product development. He has been involved in teaching-learning tasks in the fields of Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering for more than 20 years, being a pioneer in these topics in our University.
Javier Echávarri Otero is Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at ETSII-UPM. His research activities are linked to several fields of Mechanical Engineering, including most areas of tribology and contact phenomena, machine performance assessment and systematic product development. He incorporates research results to subjects on “Machine Design”, “Tribology”, and “Engineering Design”, and participates in several public- and private-funded research projects. He leads a project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, linked to designing and manufacturing special surfaces for improved tribological performance, and our team’s tribology line.
Enrique Chacón Tanarro is Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at ETSII-UPM. His research activities are linked to several fields of Mechanical Engineering, including most areas of tribology and contact phenomena, machine performance assessment and systematic product development applied to energy engineering. He incorporates research results to subjects on “Machine Design”, “Tribology”, and “Engineering Design”, and participates in several research projects. He has recently been awarded the UPM Extraordinary Prize for his PhD on elasto-hydrodynamic lubrication.
Pedro Ortego García is Chief Scientific-Technological Laboratory Technician at UPM’s Product Development Lab and has more than twenty years of experience in product and prototype design and manufacture. From prototypes to final products, he masters the use of several design resources, 3D digitalization procedures, additive manufacturing technologies, rapid form copying processes and casting technologies. He supports research, development and innovation tasks in the laboratory in the fields of polymeric, composite, ceramic and metallic materials. He has provided consulting services linked to prototyping activities for academic institutions and enterprises in fields including energy, transport, aerospace and health.
Pilar Lafont Morgado is Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering. She founded the UPM’s Product Development Lab in 1997 and led it until her retirement in 2015. As researcher she devoted her career to almost all fields of Mechanical Engineering, including: product design and development, development of methodologies for the design of mechanical transmissions, vibrations theory and its implications in machines’ life-cycle, tribology (contact phenomena, lubrication and wear), biomedical applications of Mechanical Engineering principles and related development of medical devices, among others. In all of them she was a pioneer in our country, leading our group towards the foundation of the “UPM’s Research Group in Machines Engineering” and of the “UPM’s Teaching Innovation Group in Machines Engineering”. At the beginning of the 1980s she implemented the first CAD-based project based learning experience in our country, the “EDIMPO Project”, linked to the complete design of a gearbox, which has been continuously improved since then and which is still running. She received the “UPM Teaching Innovation Award” for her innovative teaching-learning experiences.
Emilio Bautista Paz is Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering. He began teaching in 1962 as Professor in Mechanical Engineering at the Madrid School of Industrial Engineers, at present, part of UPM. For thirty years, he worked simultaneously at IBM on a part-time basis as Director of Industrial Applications Development. He has been Director of the Madrid School of Industrial Engineers, Director of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Vice-president of the Senate of Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and Vice-president of the Spanish Tribology Society of the Royal Society of Physics. He was the First President of the Spanish Association of Mechanical Engineering and Vice-president of the Ibero-American Federation of Mechanical Engineering.
“Una demostración sobre las tecnologías de fabricación aditiva industriales y de bajo coste como herramientas fundamentales de apoyo en el proceso de desarrollo de proyectos en múltiples ámbitos de la ingeniería. Es lo que pueden ver los participantes en la actividad titulada “Impresión 3D para productos avanzados”. “Les explicamos cuál es el proceso completo de desarrollo de nuevos productos y como la tecnología 3D ayuda a la ingeniería a verificar esos diseños: ergonomía, estética y todo tipo de funcionalidades”, indica Andrés Díaz Lantada, profesor de la Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Industriales. Esta tecnología tiene aplicaciones en diferentes campos: desde el sector de la automoción o aeroespacial a la biomedicina o el diseño de juguetes. Pero es “la opción de diseñar geometrías del organismo humano o digitalizar a personas a escala” lo que más llama la atención entre los jóvenes, según explica Díaz Lantada”. (UPM Channel, News).
Handbook on Microsystems for Enhanced Control of Cell Behavior, Andrés Díaz Lantada, Springer 2016: This handbook focuses on the entire development process of biomedical microsystems that promote special interactions with cells. Fundamentals of cell biology and mechanobiology are described as necessary preparatory input for design tasks. Advanced design, simulation, and micro/nanomanufacturing resources, whose combined use enables the development of biomedical microsystems capable of interacting at a cellular level, are covered in depth. A detailed series of chapters is then devoted to applications based on microsystems that offer enhanced cellular control, including microfluidic devices for diagnosis and therapy, cell-based sensors and actuators (smart biodevices), microstructured prostheses for improvement of biocompatibility, microstructured and microtextured cell culture matrices for promotion of cell growth and differentiation, electrophoretic microsystems for study of cell mechanics, microstructured and microtextured biodevices for study of cell adhesion and dynamics, and biomimetic microsystems (including organs-on-chips), among others.
Handbook on Advanced Design and Manufacturing Technologies for Bio-medical Devices, Andrés Díaz Lantada, Springer 2014: The last decades have seen remarkable advances in computer‐aided design, engineering and manufacturing technologies, multi‐variable simulation tools, medical imaging, biomimetic design, rapid prototyping, micro and nanomanufacturing methods and information management resources, all of which provide new horizons for the Biomedical Engineering fields and the Medical Device Industry. Advanced Design and Manufacturing Technologies for Biomedical Devices covers such topics in depth, with an applied perspective and providing several case studies that help to analyze and understand the key factors of the different stages linked to the development of a novel biomedical device, from the conceptual and design steps, to the prototyping and industrialization phases.
Handbook of Active Materials for Medical Devices, Andrés Díaz Lantada, PAN Stanford Publishing – CRC Press 2011: This book focuses on all types of biodevices, mainly implantable or chirurgical, used in the diagnosis or treatment of various pathologies, which benefit from the use of active materials such as sensors or actuators. Such active or “intelligent” materials are capable of responding in a controlled way to various external physical or chemical stimuli by changing some of their properties. These materials can be used to design and develop sensors, actuators, and multifunctional systems with a large number of applications for developing biodevices and medical devices. Current work in this field entails problems related to synthesis, characterization, modelling, simulation, processing, and prototyping technologies, as well as device testing and validation, all of which are treated in depth in this book. The research presented will help future developments in medical devices, based on the additional functionalities that the use of active or “intelligent” materials, both as sensors and as actuators, affords. The results offered in the book will help in the industrial expansion of active materials as part of more complex systems.
