Team behind life-saving breathing aid win prestigious engineering award

Prospective students Current students UCL in the media Services for media Tell us your story - UCL engineers and medics who developed a CPAP breathing aid now used in hospitals across the UK have received an award from the Royal Academy of Engineering for exceptional services during a pandemic. The team, including Professor Rebecca Shipley (UCL Healthcare Engineering)  and Professor Tim Baker (UCL Mechanical Engineering), worked with Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains and UCLH to reverse engineer a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) device in record time, gaining regulatory approval in 10 days. The UCL-Ventura device is now helping patients in more than 60 hospitals across the UK. In recognition of their efforts, the team behind the UCL-Ventura device have received the Royal Academy of Engineering's President's Special Award for Pandemic Services. The awards, given to 19 individuals and teams across the UK, honour exceptional engineering achievements in tackling Covid-19. Professor Michael Arthur, UCL President & Provost said: "This extraordinary team reverse-engineered, built, tested and obtained regulatory approval for these devices within 10 days, providing vital support to the NHS at a critical time. The UCL community is incredibly proud of their achievement." CPAP devices were used extensively in China and Italy to help Covid-19 patients breathe more easily, but the devices were in short supply in UK hospitals, so engineers at UCL and Mercedes-AMG HPP worked round-the-clock to reverse engineer and then improve the functioning of a device that could be manufactured rapidly by the thousands.