Children’s epilepsy treatment device wins The Engineer Collaborate to Innovate Award 2024

The winning projects for The Engineer’s annual Collaborate to Innovate awards have been announced at a special awards ceremony held at the London headquarters of The Institution of Civil Engineers. The projects were chosen for their potential to make a tangible difference to people’s lives and the planet.

The Children’s Adaptive Deep brain stimulation for Epilepsy Trial (CADET) won in the Medical & Healthcare category. The project is a clinical-industry collaboration investigating the safety, feasibility and effectiveness of a novel UK-developed brain pacemaker (Picostim DyNeuMo) to help and improve the quality-of-life of children with epilepsy. The Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences (University of Oxford) are working with Great Ormond Street Hospital and the Department of Basic and Clinical Neuroscience at King’s College London, along with Amber Therapeutic, an Oxford University spinout which developed the Picostim system.

Trials have shown that Deep Brain Stimulation is effective in reducing seizures in adults however until now no robust studies have demonstrated its effectiveness for treating childhood epilepsy. Current devices were designed for adults and have several drawbacks for use in children including the implant method which children would outgrow, static stimulation patterns, and the need for surgical replacement of batteries every 3-5 years.

The Picostim system addresses these issues by using a fully cranially-mounted system that will not be affected by a child’s growth, and a battery that can be recharged with a non-invasive induction charger. It also has the capacity to schedule therapy at different times of the day or night and to sense any seizure activity developing in the brain and respond with an appropriate dose of stimulation to halt its progression.

Professor Tim Denison, RAE Chair in Emerging Technologies at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering, says, “The C2I award recognizes the multidisciplinary collaborations that underpin great engineering achievements. The fact that this paediatric ‘engineering’ project is co-led by a group of neurosurgeons and neurologists reinforces the message.”

Since having the device fitted in October 2023 at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital, thirteen-year-old Oran Knowlson has seen an 80 per cent reduction in daytime epilepsy seizures, which had previously sometimes occurred hundreds of times a day and required frequent hospitalisation.

Jon Excell, editor and publisher of The Engineer magazine, said, “Once more, the C2I awards has unearthed an incredible crop of collaborations across a range of sectors and provided an inspiring reminder of the role that engineers are playing in addressing some of the biggest challenges we face”.