Short Biography
After completing a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering at University of Leeds, Jake worked as a Mechanical Biomedical Engineer at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London. During his tenure at GOSH, he undertook a part-time MSc in Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering at UCL, after which he started a full-time PhD student position with Dr Burriesci and Dr Ducci, funded by the British Heart Foundation.
Jake is now Research Assistant in the same group, where he also works on s.
Research Interests
Jake’s Master’s project whilst working for Dr. Burriesci involved the manufacture and assessment of a high cycle heart valve testing device, used for comparative durability testing between multiple valves over millions of cycles.
His PhD has a few different aspects, the main of which involves haemodynamic and optical assessment of replacement aortic heart valves via the use of a pulse duplicator with pressure and flowrate measurements, and a laser based Particle Image Velocimetry technique to capture instantaneous flow vectors of a cross section of the valve and mock root. He has used these methods to investigate the effect of surgical and transcatheter valve size and position upon cardiovascular performance and fluid dynamics, including the effects of changing vortical behaviour in the aortic root and sinuses of Valsalva, and the potential for non-physiological blood damage. These findings can then be applied to the development and therapeutic advice of trans-catheter aortic valve replacements, novel devices which do not require surgery to be implanted.
He has also mechanically investigated the effect of sustained exposure of bovine and porcine tissues, used to manufacture the leaflets in replacement heart valves, to typical in vitro testing fluids.
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