Me and My Job: A questioning spirit is important in Brian Caulfield's work. Catherine Foley reports

Brian Caulfield is a man with a vision. He's going where no man has gone before, developing new implant material for use in the human head and body. "It's high-tech stuff," he says, knowing full well he's at the cutting edge of modern science.

It's an ambitious plan, but this is part of what drives him. "No one knows anything about it," says the 22 year old with great optimism.

Instead of a metal plate that surgeons use today to insert into the skull following the removal of a tumor, Caulfield is focused on developing a bio-compatible plastic implant. "We have to find a plastic that can be worked on by laser."

Caulfied works away on his own in the laboratory at the National Centre for Biomedical Engineering Science in NUI Galway. The best part of his work is knowing that "when you working on something, it's either going to save someone's life or make them a whole lot better".

The goal makes all the frustrating, dogged days worth-while, he says. The work doesn't always go smoothly, but "if I can get this to work, it will be brilliant. It'll be something cool," he says.

The machine that is central to his work, called a selective laser sintering (SLS), is currently broken, he says. There is just one other SLS machine in the country, he says. He says he choose biomedical engineering because "it's such a new area" and "they've cracked making bridges, but this is going to be exciting," he says. "There are always going to be humans to help - I was always into that sort of thing. Mechanical engineers are those who work on machines, but biomedical engineers are involved with anything that has to do with human beings from implants to stents" (metal instruments used in treating cardiovascular blockages).

The whole area "is still in an exploratory phase", he says.

After graduating last year with first-class honours (B Eng), he began work on his masters. "Once I got the idea," the first stage of his work involved "a lot of reading, finding out what's going on in the world, what other people are doing and whether what I'm doing is important in the big scale of things."

Last week he was in the University of Ulster at Jordanstown, explaining his work to other postgraduate students at a symposium.

Being self-motivated and having a clear goal in sight is crucial, he says. As to what makes it exciting? "I'm doing things that no one else has done," he says. "You have to look at something and ask could it be better. You need a questioning spirit. You need to ask questions."