Africa faces unique healthcare challenges: among the lowest healthcare expenditure globally, severe shortages of clinicians, and the need for medical devices that work in contexts very different from those they were originally designed for. The Chair in Biomedical Engineering Innovation is dedicated to designing medical technologies that are not just affordable but genuinely appropriate to the people and settings that need them. Based in the Division of Biomedical Engineering within the Department of Human Biology, the Chair is also the director of UCT’s Biomedical Engineering Research Centre and leads UCT MedTech, where postgraduates design, build and prepare medical devices for clinical use.

The Chair’s research spans four interconnected themes: orthopaedic surgical planning, mobile health diagnostics, TB and respiratory devices, and regulatory science. Methodological advances include OpenSim-based surgical planning for shoulder arthroplasty, informed by the discovery of unique structural differences in the shoulders of people of African ancestry, and research on TB cough aerosol sampling that deepens understanding of airborne disease transmission. Innovations from the Chair’s team have gained international recognition, including FlexiGyn, a speculum-free gynaecological diagnostic device; ZibiPen, the world’s first reloadable intramuscular auto injector; Easy Squeezy, a child friendly device for metered dosage inhalers; and the reScribe robotic exoskeleton supporting stroke recovery. Several start-ups have emerged from these inventions, translating laboratory innovation into clinical and commercial impact.