The Bionics Institute has bold plans for expansion to speed up the development of medical devices that transform the way we treat disease.
And our team of world scientists, engineers and clinicians need world class facilities to carry out their ground-breaking research into Alzheimer’s, arthritis, hearing loss, tinnitus, chronic pain and bionic limbs.
From 2025, the Bionics Institute will be headquartered in the Aikenhead Centre for Medical Discovery (ACMD) – Australia’s first hospital-based biomedical engineering research centre, currently under construction at St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne.
One of eight independent partners sharing the new building, the Bionics Institute will benefit from co-location and collaboration with leading universities, research institutes and major industry partners.
In addition, our position on the campus of a leading tertiary hospital means we will continue to work shoulder to shoulder with the clinicians and specialists who guide and inform device development to meet clinical needs.
ACMD Partners
Benefits of being an independent partner in the ACMD
Collaboration lies at the heart of the ACMD and Bionics Institute staff will be allocated space across three floors of the ACMD to enable better communication and innovative idea generation between partners. We will also have access to shared meeting rooms, a lecture theatre for research seminars and specialised research facilities.
Sharing running costs between eight partners will bring cost savings and our researchers will be able to access state-of-the-art equipment we would not be able to purchase as a single entity. For example, the ACMD will be equipped with a machine that is used to visualise and track bone and joint motion in 3D. This will give our researchers the ability to evaluate the effectiveness of bone implants with incredible accuracy.
Maintaining our existing laboratories
Research undertaken at the Bionics Institute is very specialised and we lead the world in the evaluation of the safety and efficacy of medical devices before they are trialled in humans. For this reason, we will maintain our laboratories within the St Vincent’s campus, which are just five-minute walk away from the new building.
