Body-builders: developing cyborg organs

Scientists are combining biological tissue with synthetic materials to create a new class of “cyborgans”.

When Barney Clark went into hospital, he didn’t expect to survive more than a few days. But after receiving the world’s first permanent artificial heart transplant in December 1982, the Seattle dentist went on to live for almost four more months. The second patient to receive the Jarvik-7, developed by US doctor and engineer Robert Jarvik, astounded his doctors even further by living for more than a year and a half after his operation.

Of the more than 10,000 people in the UK who are currently waiting for an organ transplant, three die every day because of a lack of donors. The development of the artificial heart means that those on the six-month NHS waiting list have an option if their situation deteriorates while they are holding out for a transplant.

Technology has improved hugely since the Jarvik-7, which was powered by a large console that made it impossible for patients to leave the hospital. Earlier this year, a TV documentary even brought together the latest developments across the spectrum of artificial organs to create a ‘bionic man’, which was until recently on display at the Science Museum in London.

Source: Science Museum

The Bionic Man project showcased the latest in artificial organs

But doctors have yet to develop a true replacement for the real thing. And with the worldwide number of patients in need of a transplant far exceeding the small number of available donors, the need for a longer-lasting alternative certainly hasn’t gone away.

One of the key problems with artificial organs is ensuring biocompatibility, the ability of materials to provide a good environment for living cells to grow and function around them. Artificial hearts, for example, need to be haemocompatible otherwise they can destroy red blood cells or create life-threatening clots.

As scientists have become better at growing human cells in a lab, the idea has taken hold that we might be able to produce entire biological organs based on a patients’ own cells. This could not only bypass the problem of biocompatibility but also reduce the likelihood of the body rejecting the organ as a foreign body, as can happen with transplants, and of causing an infection by providing a welcome surface for bacteria. However, growing an organ for use in a patient has not proven simple.

‘In the late 1990s, people started working on developing organs using a tissue-engineering approach, and everybody thought in the next 10 years we would be growing all organs,’ said Dr Alex Seifalian, professor of nanotechnology and regenerative medicine at University College London (UCL), who was the scientific lead on the bionic man project.

‘They were trying to simulate what nature is; trying to grow, for example, a nose or ear; trying to make exactly the same cartilage and grow cells on some bio-absorbable material that disappears to leave the cartilage, and that will be placed in the patient.’

‘Everybody thought in the next 10 years we would be growing all organs’

But scientists, including Seifalian, have encountered problems with this approach. ‘In 1997 we had a grant to develop artificial arteries with tissue engineering,’ he said. ‘In animals it worked very well and then when we went to humans it just didn’t work very well because the people who needed arteries were over 50 years old, their cells weren’t growing, they’d get infections.’ The other problem was making the technology commercially viable: growing organs in a lab is a costly, time-consuming process and Seifalian’s collaborator company pulled out.

Proponents of biological organ replacements have recently been encouraged by the development of 3D tissue printing, which offers the tantalising possibility that we might build organs mechanically, layer by layer — a much faster process than growing them in the lab. But printing complex internal organs like the liver or heart is still some way off, and the technology will face similar issues to traditional tissue engineering when it comes to implanting.

In the meantime, some scientists are pursuing a different approach, combining biological tissue with synthetic materials and/or mechanical and electronic components to create what could be called hybrid or even cyborg organs (cyborgans, if you will), which are more easily manufactured, longer lasting and more successful once implanted into the body.

On one level this means incorporating some biological material into a largely man-made device. French firm Carmat, which is owned by aerospace and defence company EADS, has begun animal trials on one of the world’s most advanced designs for an artificial heart, which includes some biological elements.

Source: Carmat

The Carmat artificial heart includes a biomembrane

The two chambers inside the Carmat heart are each divided by a biomembrane that separates blood on side from hydraulic fluid on the other. Tiny motors controlled by an electronic sensor system pump the hydraulic fluid in and out of the chambers, in turn causing the membrane to pump the blood.

To increase haemocompatiblity, the membrane is made from animal tissue that helps move the blood without damaging cells. Microporous biological and synthetic biomaterials also cover every other surface that comes in contact with the blood, in order to prevent material from sticking to them. If trials are successful, Carmat hopes its heart could achieve a lifespan of at least five years, and potentially up to the nine years of extra life reached by 50 per cent of transplant patients.

But scientists are also combining biological and synthetic materials in a more fundamental way, creating permanent artificial structures or scaffolds and then growing living cells around them. Seifalian is already preparing to clinically trial blood vessels and tracheae (windpipes) made in this way, and is also developing urethrae, bladders and cardiac patches for healing hearts.

Although Seifalian’s organs are grown along similar lines to those based on temporary moulds and scaffolds that gradually disappear, providing the same increased biocompatibility and reduced the risk of infection, he argues that permanent internal structures provide several additional advantages.

‘The nondegradable material is more reliable,’ he said. ‘If you make a tube you can make it mechanically similar and sometimes better than a real trachea, so if you squash it, it goes back to its original shape [etc.] Also the surgeon knows the material is going to be there forever. If you put in an artery and the polymer disappears after three months, if the body doesn’t take over then the patient will die. But if you know the artery is going to be there forever then you will feel much better.’

Source: UCL

Prof Seifalian’s material has been used to produce part-biological, part-synthetic windpipes.

The material is a nanocomposite polymer that goes by the name polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane-poly (carbonate-urea) urethane, or the much more manageable POSS-PCU for short. It’s strong, relatively cheap to synthesise and easy to manipulate into a range of complex structures. The silicon in it helps make it biocompatible, although scientists aren’t exactly sure why. And the material’s nanostructure, which was inspired by butterfly wings Seifalian studied at the Natural History Museum in London, also makes it hydrophobic, meaning it repels water and therefore prevents bacteria from growing and causing infections.

The other benefit is commercial, he added: having a physical product to sell is a more attractive proposition for manufacturers. ‘If you have a material scaffold it can be tailored to patients or just made in different sizes and you can sell it. You can then add cells and put it into the patient.’

This biological tissue can be grown either in a lab or, in some cases, after the artificial structure is implanted into the body. Seifalian’s blood vessels, for example, contain molecules that take stem cells from the blood and convert them into the endothelial cells that line the body’s own vessels. As well as reducing the risk of rejection, this also means the structure can be implanted as soon as it is needed, rather than having to wait several months for the cells to be grown in the lab.

The next big challenge is to build one of the body’s more complex organs such as a liver, by creating a synthetic scaffold and culturing stem cells around it that then turn into hepatic (liver) tissue. This could prove even more difficult than building an entire working heart, said Seifalian. ‘A liver stores vitamins, takes poisons out of the blood and so on, so a liver virtually is factory. To make the whole organ to become functional is quite complex.’

Several other research teams are studying the use of scaffolds to build organs, but one group in particular has managed to produce tissues that most closely fit the label ‘cyborgan’. The team, which comprised researchers based at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was able to add electronic sensors to a tissue scaffold that could be used to monitor electrical activity or other changes in the cells around it.

Source: MIT

A 3D fluorescent image of an electronic tissue scaffold

Previous work had led to flat layers of cells grown on electrodes or transistors, but the MIT/Harvard researchers were able to build a porous epoxy scaffold embedded with silicon nanowires that carry electrical signals to and from the tissue grown around it, and detect activity of less than one-thousandth of a watt — about the level of electricity that might bee seen in a cell. They demonstrated the sensors could detect electrical activity related to cell contraction and changes in pH.

One of the researchers, Dr Tal Dvir, is now based at Tel Aviv University in Israel and working on making the sensors operate wirelessly without being attached to a semiconductor base so they can be incorporated into a cardiac patch. The idea is that the patch would help regenerate the heart after an attack, while the sensors monitor its progress by detecting electrical activity as the heart contracts to ensure the cells were acting synchronously. Eventually it could also operate as a pacemaker by using the nanowires to emit electrical signals or control a drug-delivery system.

‘In cardiac tissue engineering you want to see that the tissue you engineer is doing what you want it to do,’ said Dvir. ‘We put sensors within the scaffold and were able to record from each of these spots. It was like having a map of the contractions or the beating of the cells in three dimensions.’

The researchers also demonstrated the technology with blood-vessel cells and neurons, and Dvir believes arteries that monitor blood flow or patches that could help heal or stimulate the brain could also be possible, and perhaps one day even cyborg eyes or muscles.

The development of hybrid organs raises the question of whether they’re merely a stopgap until we can produce better biological replacements, perhaps with 3D printers as the enabling technology, or whether synthetic materials and electronics will allow us to enhance what nature has given us.

Source: Tal Dvir

Researchers at Tel Aviv University are developing tiny sensors to implant in lab-grown organs.

Dvir thinks additive manufacturing could actually be what delivers the full possibility of cyborgans, rather than making them redundant. ‘When I think about 3D printers I immediately think about the opportunity to combine electronics with engineered tissue,’ he said. ‘So in my opinion, I think there is great potential for these cyborg tissues. If it works with patches it will work with fully engineered organs.’

Seifalian goes a step further. He sees the future as fully synthesised organs that work even better than the real thing, based on biocompatible, functional materials, perhaps with embedded electronics. ‘With growing organs we will move forward but I don’t think that’s the future. Why can’t we make a heart from functionalised material that works very well and doesn’t break, doesn’t get calcification and so on?’

‘There is great potential for these cyborg tissues. If it works with patches it will work with fully engineered organs.’

We’re actually already seeing similar ideas become reality, for example De Montfort University has developed an artificial pancreas that releases insulin via a glucose-sensitive material (see below). And Seifalian is playing around with the idea of a synthetic heart made from ionic polymers that contract when an electrical signal is applied.

‘Unfortunately it’s not as strong, it’s not fast enough to replace the heart muscle so we’re still working on it,’ he said, adding: ‘I don’t think we’re very far away from it. I think in 10 years’ time somebody will come up with such a thing.’ If that’s the case we could find ourselves going full circle and jettisoning biological replacements altogether. Perhaps the future isn’t cyborg organs but android ones.

Artificial pancreas

The need to more carefully regulate type 1 diabetcs’ insulin intake has led to several attempts to create an artificial pancreas that removes the need for sufferers to perform their own injections. Most designs include an implanted insulin pump and electronic glucose sensor regulated by an external device, but researchers led by Prof Joan Taylor at De Montfort University in Leicester have developed a self-contained implant that manages insulin release automatically and more precisely. Insulin is stored behind a polymer gel that softens in the presence of glucose molecules, releasing insulin to the liver in the right amount until the glucose drops.

Although the researchers have yet to incorporate living tissue to improve the device’s biocompatibility, the design represents how functional materials performing a more natural process can operate better than mechanical and electronic components alone. ‘It has dose-related activity just by virtue of the fact that it works on a molecular level,’ said Taylor. ‘So you don’t have to build this in digitally; it responds naturally as an absolute function of glucose content.’

This article first appeared on The Engineer.

Come together: towards machines that build themselves

Self-assembly is finding applications in areas from space to medical implants.

If humanity is going to fulfil its dreams about space — exploring it, mining it, colonising it — then we need to learn how to build in it. The kinds of large structures required for launching deep-space missions could be made much simpler if we could construct them in orbit rather than packaging them up for launch from Earth. And to build in one of the most extreme environments we know, we’ll have to take human involvement out of the picture. Automated construction equipment is one solution. But there may be another possibility: self-assembly.

‘Solar power is a huge problem for communication satellites,’ says Kim Ward, head of space engineering and technology at Harwell-based research centre RAL Space. ‘The traditional way of doing solar panels is they all have to be joined together and have a fancy deployment. But if you could have 30 or 40 free-flying solar panels that joined together then you could assemble huge panels. And if they’re really smart, they could get hit by a bit of space debris but then reconfigure and regenerate.’

Source: Magna Parva

RAL Space is developing hexagonal craft that autonomously join-up to form a larger structure once in space.

RAL Space is working with Qinetiq Space and technology firm Magna Parva on a proposal for the European Space Agency (ESA) to develop what it calls a “hex swarm”, a fleet of seven dinner plate-sized hexagonal spacecraft that could be launched into space in a stack and then autonomously join together to form a larger structure. To convince ESA it will work, Ward’s team is building a test rig to that can demonstrate how the craft will use locate and then dock with each other.

Ward calls the hexagonal craft “worker bees”, referring to their fairly limited capabilities: they would align using the Sun as a reference point, find each other using infrared signals and rendezvous with one of two techniques RAL Space is testing (and not yet revealing). But they would be overseen by a “queen bee” that could communicate with them and with mission control.

As well as forming the basis of large structures like solar panels or communication dishes, the craft could share power or computing resources. ‘The whole idea of assembling structures on the Moon or Mars is equally relevant,’ says Ward. ‘In a sense it’s easier because you’re doing it in two dimensions, but you still have the same problem of things moving around that join together to make potentially very large structures.’

Source: Magna Parva

The hexagonal craft would be stackable for easy launch.

Several studies over the last few years have proposed similar self-assembling or reconfigurable spacecraft concepts, although Ward claims RAL Space is the first group to run a demonstration project. Another recent idea put forward by Skylar Tibbits, founder of the Self-Assembly Lab at MIT, is to build components made from specially designed materials that can change their shape and purpose in space, for example from a solar panel to a parabolic antenna.

‘If you can reconfigure from one state to another and make extremely functional systems in between then you have more robust scenarios,’ he says. ‘Right now, a lot of the technologies are one-off and so you ship up a lot of equipment, you need human space walks and construction up there.’

Tibbits points out that this idea is different from that of true self-assembly — there’s no coming together of constituent parts. And RAL Space’s vision of robotic components that link up is far from the principle of natural molecular self-assembly used to build nanostructures. But what they all share is the notion that adding an aspect of autonomy to a structure or material and removing human intervention can increase its functionality. And this concept is increasingly being employed across several other areas of manufacturing.

‘If you can reconfigure from one state to another and make extremely functional systems in between then you have more robust scenarios’

Skylar TIbbits, MIT Self-Assembly Lab

Scientists have long looked enviously at the efficiency with which nature manufactures things. The processes by which proteins in living cells are formed, folded and combined don’t require external energy or direction and are instead driven by the natural movement of molecules and the various forces between them. The other advantage of this molecular self-assembly is the complexity of the structures that can be formed at the nanolevel, something that traditional “top-down” manufacturing techniques cannot replicate.

For this reason, molecular self-assembly has become a popular technique for scientists experimenting with adding special functions to material surfaces or creating tiny structures with incredible properties. For example, a team at the University of Sheffield is using it to develop self-propelled nano-devices that can deliver drugs to a tumour within the body.

Chasing tumours

Drug delivery has already become pretty sophisticated. Using magnetic fields or other stimuli, doctors can guide tiny packets of cancer drugs through the body to the site of a tumour, meaning other organs aren’t exposed to their toxic effects. But scientists at Sheffield University want to go a step further and create self-assembling autonomous nano-devices that guide themselves to the tumour by following the trail of chemical signals it releases into the bloodstream.

The devices are based on spherical polymer molecules each with a catalyst patch to drive a reaction that creates thrust. These particles naturally self-assemble into groups that form the structure of the drug delivery device. ‘The neat thing about it is depending on how they join together you get different types of motion,’ says research leader Dr Stephen Ebbens. ‘So if they join with the catalysts perfectly aligned they’ll move in a straight line. If you have an offset you’ll get devices that spin around. And this all emerges from this natural self-assembly process.’

If Ebbens’ team can control the self-assembly process by changing the molecules’ design in a certain they will be able to tailor the devices to move in the desired way. ‘One of our ideas is to grow a long chain where the individual units are flexibly linked to make a snake-like structure,’ he says. Alternatively, making larger round devices that spin could be used to mix substances in microfluidic devices more precisely.

But this kind of self-assembly isn’t quite yet an option for commercial mass production. That’s why microchip companies are hoping to instead use the concept to make manufacturing tools that could produce the next generation of electronic components at much tinier scales than is currently possible — thereby helping to maintain the “Moore’s Law” development of ever-faster processors.

This method of “directed self-assembly” (DSA) relies on materials known as block copolymers, chains of at least two types of monomer molecules that are grouped into sections. The different monomer groups are linked but naturally want to separate, causing the molecules to arrange themselves into specific shapes — spheres or cylinders for example — depending on their structure. These copolymers can be used to create lithographic masks with features smaller than the wavelength of light, which in turn could mass-produce chips with much finer detail than those made by traditional photolithography.

Source: MIT

Self-assembly can help make microchips with far smaller features than conventional methods.

Until last year, researchers had only been able to create two-dimensional masks, but a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has developed a way to build several layers of self-assembled structures to produce more complex 3D configurations. The technique involves dissolving the polymer and spin-coating it onto a silicon substrate covered with tiny posts that repel the polymer and so guide the self-assembly process.

‘We can put a set of cylinders going in one direction and above it a layer of cylinders going in the other direction and have junctions in between the two,’ says Prof Caroline Ross, who has been working on DSA since 1997. ‘So you can imagine making a three-dimensional structure in one go rather than building it up layer by layer.’ Ross’s team have also been able to use DSA to produce square shapes typical of existing electronics design, rather than the hexagonal shapes the self-assembled molecules naturally want to form.

Molecular manufacturing

For DSA to be used in commercial manufacturing, companies need to find ways to scale and speed up the technique and reduce the number of defects that occur. But over a decade of research like that at MIT has reportedly helped push the concept onto the R&D agenda at major firm such as Intel. And molecular self-assembly has also started to work its way into other areas of manufacturing research, not just in the creation of tiny devices but also in the production of materials themselves. A team at Manchester University, for example, is using the principles of natural self-assembly to mimicking the DNA building process in order to create a more efficient chemical manufacturing process.

Proteins and other molecules in living cells don’t form spontaneously but rather are constructed by tiny “molecular machines” that grab small molecules and join them together in specifically ordered chains. Researchers at Manchester University led by Prof David Leigh hope that by replicating this concept with their own molecular machines, they can produce a new, more efficient way of synthesising chemicals that doesn’t rely on multi-step batch processing that uses up lots of energy.

Their first machine is based on the ribosome that links amino acids into proteins according to the code laid out in DNA. The machine’s movements are driven by the random motion of molecules and its structure means that each stage of the process occurs in the right order. In this way, molecular manufacturing is another example of taking the human intervention out of the process and instead using a form of self-assembly. But the complexity offered by such a precise and programmable manufacturing method means the obvious application for it might be in creating new materials rather than replacing current techniques for making existing chemicals.

Self-assembly is even being used to create substances that mimic some of the properties of biological tissue but without the difficulties created by it actually being alive. Scientists have been able to coat water droplets with a membrane of fatty molecules known as lipids to approximate cells and, because the lipids have both water-loving and water-repelling parts, when the droplets are surrounded by oil they self-assemble into a specific structure. Inserting other biological molecules into the membranes gives these “cells” useful and controllable properties, for example conducting ionic currents or transducing light into electricity. Unlike living tissue, however, these droplet structures don’t need a supply of oxygen or food and they can’t die or grow uncontrollably.

A team from Oxford University recently developed a means to manufacture these structures on a larger scale by building their own version of a 3D printer that injected the water droplets into a bath of oil and lipids in a pre-detemined pattern. Gabriel Villar, one of the researchers and now an employee of technology transfer firm Cambridge Consultants, says the technique could be used to print functional structures for biocompatible medical implants, without the hassle of printing and maintaining fully living tissue.

Source: Oxford University

Oxford University researchers have created tissue-like structures from self-assembling water and fat droplets.

‘By including the right kinds of biomolecules and chemicals you might be able to get these droplets to talk to a living tissue in a very well defined way,’ he says. ‘With living cells it’s very difficult to tell exactly what they’re going to do. One big problem is to stop cells from becoming carcinogenic, from creating tumours in a printed structure, or differentiating into the wrong kind of cell.’

Again, the advantage of these bio-inspired, self-assembled structures over simple electrical machines is their complexity, he adds. ‘The power in using biological processes is you can really manipulate matter much more generally. You can use them to control the flow of matter or to construct new molecules in a controlled way or to analyse or detect a presence of a specific molecule in a solution or in the air.’

The development of 3D printing could be important in scaling up production of self-assembling materials and structures but also in applying the principles to much larger objects. Skylar Tibbits of MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab has actually coined the term “4D printing” to describe the use of 3D printers to make objects that can change shape or function after they’ve been printed, although again he stresses that these items are transformational rather than truly self-assembled.

Using a Stratasys Connex printer that can make structures from two different polymers and experimental Autodesk design software known as Project Cyborg, Tibbits has been able to create a plastic string that very slowly folds up into a pre-programmed shape when placed in water. Its joints are made from a polymer that expands by 150 per cent when wet, and combining that with sections of a rigid, non-absorbing plastic creates an object that can change its shape without the need for motors and actuators — just the ambient energy input of submerging it.

Source: MIT

Combining different materials with additive manufacturing can produce

You can imagine how this idea might be used to produce bigger strings or flat sheets that can fold themselves into large objects such as furniture without the need for human assembly, just as protein molecules fold themselves into shapes that give them functionality. But Tibbits has more unusual concepts in mind, not just the transforming space structures but also pipes that change their shape to reduce water flow or even that grow and constrict rapidly to pump water along — an idea he is working on with Boston-based engineering firm Geosyntec.

However, it’s not entirely clear how much of a role 3D printers and additive manufacturing will play in spreading self-assembly. For example, Tibbits questions whether 4D printing will actually be the technique he uses to produce the transforming pipes because of its size limitations.

‘Right now you can print up to a few feet in all dimensions on the biggest of the Connex machines and a lot of people are looking at how we can scale up printing,’ he says. ‘In the future we might be able to use a process like that for the pipes but it’s more about the mindset that you can program these materials in elegant ways to transform.’

‘The multi-functionality and the self-assembly comes out of the freedom of design that you can only get from an additive approach.’

Richard Hague, Centre for Additive Manufacturing

At the other end of the scale, 3D printing isn’t yet precise enough to manipulate molecules, for example to set up self-assembly for electronics manufacturing. ‘With 3D printers you’re looking at tens of microns and it’s a different magnitude,’ says Caroline Ross. On the other hand, the researchers at Oxford University overcame several issues to use 3D printing technology to build their water-droplet networks. They used an extruded glass tube the width of a human hair to place the droplets precisely and developed control software to compensate for the way this print head would drag the droplets after it had printed them.

Richard Hague, director of the EPSRC Centre for Additive Manufacturing at Nottingham University, argues that self-assembly essentially is a form of additive manufacturing. ‘Most additive manufacturing is at the micro scale really, so moving to the nanoscale throws up a whole bunch of different problems and you’re looking at a different bunch of physics.’

But, he adds, there is immense possibility for the technology as it progresses. ‘With the additive approach the most important thing is the design freedoms you get, the ability to make these complicated parts. The multi-functionality and the self-assembly comes out of the freedom of design that you can only get from an additive approach.’

This article first appeared on The Engineer.

Interview: Arup boss and infrastructure expert Terry Hill

A lifetime leading major infrastructure projects has made Terry Hill a preacher for their powers of regeneration. But now, he says, the sector needs a revolution.

Terry Hill, board of trustees chair, Arup

The key factor behind London’s successful bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games — according to Arup’s Terry Hill — wasn’t the legacy plans, the environmental credentials or David Beckham. It was the Channel Tunnel. Or rather it was the rail link between London and the tunnel, also known as High Speed 1 (HS1), which not only connected the UK to the rest of Europe but also stopped at the Stratford area of east London that would become home to the Olympics.

‘Stratford before HS1 was a difficult place to get to — unknown, forgotten,’ Hill said. ‘HS1 meant you could get from the centre of London to the Olympic site in seven minutes. I remember taking the International Olympic Committee through the tunnels between Kings Cross and the Stratford site and they were blown away with the ease [with which] you could get to the Olympic Park. No Olympics had ever achieved that before. And that, to my mind, was what brought the Olympics to London and contributed to its great success.’

Hill, who was technical director of HS1 and chairman of Arup when it worked on Heathrow Terminal 5 and the Beijing Olympic stadium, and recently received the Royal Academy of Engineering’s President’s Medal for promoting excellence in the field, is a great evangelist for the transformative power of infrastructure. Connect two places, he believes, and business, investment and regeneration can follow. ‘This is the thing I have worked all my professional life for, and that is infrastructure as regenerating the economy and region,’ he said. ‘Infrastructure is a fantastic stimulus to creating fantastic new areas.’

‘Infrastructure is a fantastic stimulus to creating fantastic new areas.’

The 16km Öresund Bridge that links Sweden and Denmark is his prime example: since the opening of the Arup-designed crossing in 2000, the previously declining Swedish city of Malmö has become a gentrified, skyscrapered centre of knowledge industries. And back in London, the areas around St Pancras and Stratford stations have also seen major regeneration, which Hill attributes to the arrival of HS1.

It’s hard to argue that infrastructure hasn’t made a difference in these cases, but it’s often one of many factors in regeneration. Malmo’s revival was sparked not just by the bridge but also by a new university and a major housing exposition. East London’s transformation arguably began in the 1990s with a creative scene fuelled by cheap rents and eventually followed by a planned regeneration scheme that included the Olympics. Surely this was more important than the building of a high-speed line to Paris?

HS1: Key to the Olympics?

His response is that infrastructure is what enables regeneration to happen. ‘Great cities — you think of them because of their icons, their culture, their society. But actually it’s totally underpinned by efficient infrastructure, which we take for granted but actually makes the difference between a busy and crowded place and a world city.’

For all his enthusiasm for what infrastructure can achieve, however, Hill thinks there’s a problem. The world is changing dramatically as more and more people move to the cities, but the way we deliver infrastructure has yet to move with it. And if it doesn’t, then we face a crisis, he argued. ‘In the provision of infrastructure for cities, we’ve not had the transformation that we’ve had in other economic areas. If you look at the digital revolution, the quality of product from the automotive industry, the efficiency that comes with the research that goes into aviation technology, I don’t think we’ve had that in construction and infrastructure.’

This poses a huge challenge. ‘The amount of people living in cities is going to double over the next 40 years. Everything that’s been built and provided and run and operated and maintained in cities but has developed over the last 5,000 years has got to be done again in the next 40. If we don’t do that smarter then there is a looming crisis as to what the cities are. The cities we know and love and cherish now are going to be overwhelmed by this tide of humanity rushing in.’

A big part of the problem has to do with cost. Arguably, we do have more capable and efficient infrastructure that has benefited from digital monitoring and control systems. But as a 2010
report led by Hill highlighted, infrastructure isn’t getting any cheaper. ‘Everything else that you know, whether it’s food, mobile phones, cars, clothing or whatever, the trend is for things to get better, quicker, cheaper. And yet there doesn’t seem to be any trend that way [in infrastructure],’ he said.

It’s a particular problem in the UK: Hill’s report for the Treasury found infrastructure costs in Britain were significantly higher than in Europe, placing the blame on a range of factors including unnecessary standards, blurred decision making in government and a lack of long-term certainty. Hill also pointed to the government’s lack of understanding of the risk of big projects and the tendency to throw money at a situation rather than attempt to reduce costs, which means that we don’t necessarily get the best value for money.

‘People are naturally conservative and think “goodness me, this is going to go over budget — I better have a big budget”, and the trouble is when you have a big budget you tend to spend it. So there’s almost a behavioural nature that ends up in a spiral of increasing costs rather than decreasing costs.’ It’s partly driven by a perception that was formed in previous decades by over-running projects such as the Jubilee line underground extension and the Channel Tunnel itself, he added.

But one could argue that we’ve now learnt from our mistakes and our fear of overspending has made us better at meeting, or at least setting, targets. The Olympics budget was tripled from its original estimate but then met without further overspend. ‘HS1 was not just done on time and on budget; it opened on the day we had predicted six or seven years before,’ said Hill. ‘We’ve done the first order improvement. We now can predict the outcomes and we can deliver against those. I think the second order is just making it far more efficient and that means taking some risks and seeing if we can do things quicker or at a lot lower cost than at the moment.’

HS1 was completed on time and budget.

It’s not surprising to discover Hill is in favour of the new high-speed rail link between London and northern England. He argues that people always object to big projects because they disturb the comfort of a familiar if unsatisfying status quo, yet once they are finished the public tend to accept the change. But just because people might accept a project in the long run doesn’t mean it’s necessarily the best option.

‘People would be less sensitive if we could deliver infrastructure more efficiently.’

‘That’s where I disagree with you,’ he said. ‘I don’t think you have to get infrastructure exactly right, because what happens is the world forms around it. Was that bridge between Denmark and Sweden put in exactly the right place? People, jobs, investment start moving and forming round the new thing. Yes, we’ve got to put the emphasis on getting it as least intrusive as possible. But that should not deter us from getting on and providing it. Because every year it’s not provided there are people who are not benefiting from it and, when it’s done, they will.’

Once again, he believes innovation is the key to overcoming public opposition to major projects. ‘People would be less sensitive if we could deliver infrastructure more efficiently. Imagine if we could do the equivalent of keyhole surgery with infrastructure. We are not doing a bad job with Crossrail: most of it is hidden from view while we’re getting on with it. Imagine if we could do that with railways, with power stations, with waterworks and so on. The equivalent of keyhole surgery for infrastructure would mean that politicians and financiers would take decisions a lotmore readily.’

This article first appeared on The Engineer.

Young people want more than just money (though it helps)

It’s great being an engineer. That’s the belief of the vast majority of students and recent graduates considering an engineering career who took part in a recent survey. Over 80 per cent of those still studying were happy with their course while over 90 per cent of graduates see themselves staying in the profession long term.

But things aren’t as rosy as this suggests. Surveys such as this one, conducted by GTI Media, should always be taken with a pinch of salt: they represent a small, self-selecting sample of people and ignore those who have already given up on engineering.

We’re constantly told that the UK needs more science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) graduates – 40,000 extra a year according to the Social Market Foundation. And figures in the most recent Engineering UK report show around one third of engineering and technology graduates obtain work unrelated to their degrees. So it makes sense that keeping more people in the industry has to be part of the strategy of addressing the skills shortage.

The question is what to do about it. The obvious answer many will immediately shout is higher salaries. But it’s not as simple as that. Of students considering a career outside engineering, 44 per cent said the potential to earn more elsewhere was a factor. But this was second to the potential to do more interesting or fulfilling work (55 per cent).

Compared to students considering careers in banking, accountancy, IT and law, those looking at engineering were the least likely to be influenced by money and had the lowest salary expectations. Instead, they were the most likely to be motivated by the profession’s contribution to society. And, surprisingly, they were the least likely to be tempted into another sector.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, those interested in banking were the most likely to be motivated by money (although they were also the most likely to take a job in another industry). Realistically, engineering firms will never be able to offer graduates City-level salaries because of the more long-term nature of their business. So targeting those for whom money is most important seems like something of a waste of time.

That’s not to say higher salaries wouldn’t make a difference. And as one surveyed student put it, there’s little clarity or consistency on what a “competitive” starting wage is. But perhaps most people just aren’t that materialistic and we’d be better combining monetary reward with greater outreach to students, to show and explain to them how rewarding and intellectually stimulating engineering can be.

The other problem that emerges from the survey is that over a quarter of students applying for jobs are not confident they will find one. Part of this is probably due to the high levels of graduate unemployment in general. Still, figures in the Engineering UK report show that engineering and technology graduates are slightly more likely to be out of work or further training than the average for all degree subjects (10.9 per cent compared to 9.2 per cent). And things are even worse for the computer science graduates who are apparently in such demand (14.6 per cent).

Ask the students what the obstacles to getting a job are, and by far the most common responses are the lack of opportunities and the difficulty of obtaining work experience. If the engineering industry wants to retain higher numbers of graduates it must find a way to hold their interest even at times when jobs aren’t plentiful. More and better internship programmes could be a way to do this, especially if they started targeting students from a younger age.

You don’t have to look far to find anecdotes of young engineers not being prepared for the world of work. And one comment pulled out of the survey highlighted the extra difficulty for first-year students in securing placements. Perhaps building stronger relationships with students over the course of their degrees, using open days and pre-internships or ‘spring weeks’ such as the finance sector does, will make young people more likely to hold out for an engineering job once their studies are over.

Of course, the other side of the argument is the need for better skilled graduates, an issue often brought up by industry. Over 60 per cent of graduates surveyed felt their course only prepared them “quite well” for work and just under 50 per cent felt they had limited preparation in terms of technical skills.

But perhaps this is another area where greater interaction with engineering firms over the course of a degree could help. If industry wants more and better employees, it needs to take a greater role in helping train and attract them.

This article first appeared on The Engineer.