A surgeon who trained in Swansea and Cardiff has won a prize for a device which he hopes could one day insert patches onto damaged heart muscle, avoiding the need for major surgery.
Cardiothoracic surgeon Chris Roche teamed up with two universities in Sydney, where he paused his training to do a PhD, and designed a stamp-like instrument to push a regenerative patch onto a patient's heart.
The HeartStamp, as it is known, won this year's Cutlers' Surgical Prize. The UK prize is run in conjunction with the Royal College of Surgeons and recognises a surgeon, or team including a surgeon, who has performed outstanding work in technical advances in surgical treatment.
"Winning the prize was a huge deal for me, especially on a PhD student’s salary," said Dr Roche.
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He paid tribute to the team he collaborated with, and said of the HeartStamp: "It’s a special thing to have worked on and I hope it will benefit patients in future."
Dr Roche said a lot of research had been carried out on ways to regenerate damaged muscle after a heart attack, leading to a trial in 2018 using patches. The hope is that regenerative patches which match patients' cells can prevent the need for major surgery.
Dr Roche said minimally invasive methods of inserting patches were being worked on, and that the HeartStamp was the first robotic one.
He and his university collaborators have had a proof-of-concept paper published in the journal, Frontiers in Robotics and AI.
"We've published our data, and it's freely available," added Dr Roche. "The next step is to test it in a more systemic way."
The 36-year-old trained at Swansea's Morriston Hospital and Cardiff's University Hospital of Wales before heading to Sydney.
His three-year PhD focuses on converting stem cells from blood or skin into beating heart cells.
Dr Roche said he expected to be back in Wales in the coming months to do cardiothoracic clinical work.
He was awarded £5,000 as part of the surgical prize, which he will invest in his career.
"I’ll be spending it on Royal College of Surgeons training courses - not the most exciting way to spend the cash but there's something nice about spending it on improving my skills as a surgeon," he said.
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