DUBLIN:DEREK YOUNG has 28 new ideas on his table, each one with the potential to improve the practice of medicine.

Some have been languishing in the drawers of inventors for years; others sprang to mind only weeks ago. It's Young's job to assess the ideas and guide them through a process that could see them go to market.

People in Ireland have had innovative ideas for medical devices for years, but the focus here has largely been on manufacturing, says Young, who heads the Centre for Innovation in Surgical Technology at the Colles Institute, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI).

He draws on 15 years of experience in developing ideas in medical devices, and sees plenty of opportunity-in-waiting here, but bottlenecks too.

"The big multinationals [in Ireland] have trained a lot of fantastic engineers who are now starting to come out of those companies and start up their own, local enterprises," he says. "But still I feel there's a huge divide between the surgeon and the engineering and the market."

One of the limiting factors for innovative engineers is getting time to talk to end-users such as surgeons, according to Young. "I remember sitting outside an operating room and I got about 10 minutes to show my idea or prototype to a surgeon, and it's not the best time to meet a surgeon, coming out of a long day's surgery. That's what engineers are working with - you get a snapshot, and it's not really enough to translate their work into medical or clinical practice." Surgeons themselves have little time to develop their own improvements in an industry-focused way, he notes.

The new centre, set up seven months ago, connects innovators, surgeons and industry in a bid to review and commercialise ideas. It links with Irish universities, networks of surgeons and innovation centres, including the Cleveland Clinic in the US.

The RCSI initiative, backed by Enterprise Ireland, will set up a module on innovation for trainee doctors, and encourage clinical trials on medical devices in Ireland, he adds.

Young welcomes ideas in any format, from napkin jottings to a prototype. "Our sources are coming from not just surgeons, but clinicians, cardiologists and nursing. We currently have products going through in orthopaedics, a urinary catheter device, a neurosurgery device and some nanotechnology. The more the merrier - we want ideas coming in from everybody."