Dr. Cristina Tuinea-Bobe,

RKT Business Development Manager

Research

Research Groups: Centre for Polymer Micro and Nano TechnologyResearch Groups: Centre for Polymer Micro and Nano TechnologyResearch and Areas of Expertise:- Development of bio-medical devices via injection moulding- Surface characterisation of different materials and components using: SEM, AFM, White Light Interferometry, Confocal Microscopy- Surface chemistry modification via plasma treatment or casting on different surfaces- Surface structuring of polymers via injection moulding or photolithographic methods- Material properties modification which are affected by different process parameters- Stretchable conductors- Thin film deposition onto polymers and elastomers- Ultrasound monitoring of injection processResearch and Areas of Expertise:- Development of bio-medical devices via injection moulding- Surface characterisation of different materials and components using: SEM, AFM, White Light Interferometry, Confocal Microscopy- Surface chemistry modification via plasma treatment or casting on different surfaces- Surface structuring of polymers via injection moulding or photolithographic methods- Material properties modification which are affected by different process parameters- Stretchable conductors- Thin film deposition onto polymers and elastomers- Ultrasound monitoring of injection process

Research projects

Research projects involving Dr. Cristina Tuinea-Bobe.

Role	Date	Title/description	Funder	Award
Researcher	2013-10-01T00:00:00	The EPSRC Centre in Innovative Manufacturing in Medical Devices will research and develop advanced methods for functionally stratified design and near patient manufacturing, to enable cost effective matching of device function to the patient needs and surgical environment. This will deliver "the right product, by the right process to the right patient at the right time" to an enhanced standard of reliability and performance. The centre will research and develop: 1) Functionally stratified design systems, which will be initially applied to existing device manufacturing processes and subsequently to the manufacture of scaffolds, developing novel pre-clinical simulation methods, which match implant design to patient function, delivering a cost effective Stratified Approach for Enhanced Reliability (SAFER) 2) Innovative near patient manufacturing processes, enabled by stratified and individualised definitions of patient need, to provide a more cost effective approach to personalised devices. The two flagship challenges will be integrated with the key platform capabilities, across the centre to generate, for the first time, a closed loop design and manufacturing framework for medical devices to deliver enhanced performance and reliability. These innovative design and manufacturing advances will focus in the first instance on class 3 medical devices for musculoskeletal disease, where the cost of device failure and need for throughout life reliability are high. The National Centre will develop, lead and integrate an international network of industrialists, academics, clinicians and regulatory body representatives in order to support the musculoskeletal medical device manufacturing industry to deliver the innovative design and manufacturing challenges and implement the outcomes into manufacturing practice in a global highly regulated market. The Centre will create the research infrastructure, tools and methods, expertise and suitably qualified personnel to support continued innovation and growth of the medical device manufacturing sector in the UK. To do so, the Centre will work across the EPSRC priority research areas "Manufacturing the Future" and "Towards next generation healthcare," drawing upon capabilities and collaborating with existing centres of excellence. The Centre will provide a platform for fundamental innovative device manufacturing research and promote its rapid exploitation by industry through outreach and translation activities and a generic platform for diversification into other technologies. It will grow the UK's research capability in medical device manufacturing research to underpin the development of next generation medical devices and the development of high quality manufacturing processes to provide cost effective, reliable and effective devices. It will be applied to enhanced manufacturing of existing devices such as joint replacements and support manufacture of new products and biomaterial scaffolds. The Centre will operate across five leading academic centres of excellence in the field. The Centre will be led by Leeds University (Fisher, Williams, Ingham, Wilcox, Jennings and Redmond) and will be supported by collaboration from Newcastle (Dalgarno and McKaskie), Nottingham (Grant, Ahmed and Warrior), Sheffield (Hatton) and Bradford (Coates). The Centre will work closely with major manufacturers and users including surgeons who see at first hand the challenges of patient and surgical variation. The Centre will provide a platform for developing fundamental medical device manufacturing science and promote its rapid exploitation by industry.		Researcher
Co-I	2017-09-01T00:00:00	Shrink wrapping is widely used as secondary packaging of individual items into larger unit loads. Although shrink wrapping is commonly used, there are disadvantages to this technique, particularly with heat sensitive products such as aerosols. Of all packaging machines, shrink wrappers are one of the heaviest energy users. The process requires running the pack through a heat tunnel at to shrink the polyethylene film onto the product. TRAKRAP have developed an automated wrapping system that uses virtually no heat and uses thin, 100% recyclable “stretch” film to secure the pack. TRAKRAP’s new stretch wrapping system will provide a cost effective wrapping solution for small heat sensitive products, without the need of collated trays. It will provide an alternative to shrink wrapping by offering the same benefits but with considerable energy and cost savings. It will reduce heat and energy requirements by over 90% and reduce the use of plastic materials by >60%. TRAKRAP’s new system will eliminate the risk of explosion, simplify health and safety requirements, lower insurance premiums, and reduce product changeover times (one size of film fits all packs), as well as significant reduction in packaging costs and packaging waste. The proposed system is also much more flexible than shrink wrapping, being able to manage a wide variety of pack sizes, formats and speeds on a digital platform consistent with high value manufacturing. The combination of film development and digital productivity enhancement will have benefits across a wide range of market sectors outside of aerosols alone.		Co-I
Co-I		Polymer testing and characterisation		Co-I
Co-I	2017-04-03T00:00:00	The vision of RM4L is that, by 2022 we will have achieved a transformation in construction materials, using the biomimetic approach first adopted in M4L, to create materials that will adapt to their environment, develop immunity to harmful actions, self-diagnose the on-set of deterioration and self-heal when damaged. This innovative research into smart materials will engender a step-change in the value placed on infrastructure materials and provide a much higher level of confidence and reliability in the performance of our infrastructure systems. The ambitious programme of inter-related work is divided into four Research Themes (RTs); RT1: Self-healing of cracks at multiple scales, RT2: Self-healing of time-dependent and cyclic loading damage, RT3: Self-diagnosis and immunisation against physical damage, and RT4: Self-diagnosis and healing of chemical damage. These bring together the four complementary technology areas of self-diagnosis (SD); self-immunisation and self-healing (SH); modelling and tailoring; and scaling up to address a diverse range of applications such as cast in-situ, precast, repair systems, overlays and geotechnical systems. Each application will have a nominated 'champion' to ensure viable solutions are developed. There are multiple inter-relationships between the Themes. The nature of the proposed research will be highly varied and encompass, amongst other things, fundamental physico-chemical actions of healing systems, flaws in potentially viable SH systems; embryonic and high-risk ideas for SH and SD; and underpinning mathematical models and optimisation studies for combined self-diagnosing/self-healing/self-immunisation systems. Industry, including our industrial partners throughout the construction supply chain and those responsible for the provision, management and maintenance of the world's built environment infrastructure will be the main beneficiaries of this project. We will realise our vision by addressing applications that are directly informed by these industrial partners. By working with them across the supply chain and engaging with complementary initiatives such as UKCRIC, we will develop a suite of real life demonstration projects. We will create a network for Early Career Researchers (ECRs) in this field which will further enhance the diversity and reach of our existing UK Virtual Centre of Excellence for intelligent, self-healing construction materials. We will further exploit established relationships with the international community to maximise impact and thereby generate new initiatives in a wide range of related research areas, e.g. bioscience (bacteria); chemistry (SH agents); electrochemical science (prophylactics); computational mechanics (tailoring and modelling); material science and engineering (nano-structures, polymer composites); sensors and instrumentation and advanced manufacturing. Our intention is to exploit the momentum in outreach achieved during the M4L project and advocate our work and the wider benefits of EPRSC-funded research through events targeted at the general public and private industry. The academic impact of this research will be facilitated through open-access publications in high-impact journals and by engagement with the wider research community through interdisciplinary networks, conferences, seminars and workshops.		Co-I