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Development of the World's first radiation-tolerant, wafer-scale (13 cm square) CMOS imager (Active Pixel Sensor) which presents exciting new potential for medical, scientific and technological imaging with much improved performance and lower life-time costs. This development fully met a Grand Challenge set by EPSRC and the imager, called Dynamite, is being exploited in on-going trials for prostate cancer radiotherapy at the Royal Marsden Hospital/ICR and for diffraction-enhanced mammography at UCL/Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, and proton therapy imaging with Wellcome Trust support. Dynamite won the IET Innovation Award for Electronics (2012). A spinout company, ISDI Ltd, was formed in 2010 to further custom CMOS imager design and provision. [text removed for publication]
This case study demonstrates both major societal (healthcare) and economic impact through making commercially available new and revolutionary medical diagnostic and therapeutic imaging technology, being delivered directly a new start-up company. It also exemplifiers the entire entrepreneurial pipeline from RC-UK Basic Technology funding to successful company creation.
The University of Southampton's distinguished body of work on the design of technology for gamma-ray detection and imaging has informed new counter-terrorism practices. Technological advances arising from the research have been crucial to delivering significant benefits in the fields of homeland security and nuclear safety — the latter particularly in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster. A spin-out company, Symetrica, currently employs 26 people in the UK and the USA, has a forecast turnover of more than £10 million for 2013-14 and has been recognised as an example of best practice. It is a technological leader in the field of radioactive isotope identification.
Radiation physicists at the University of Surrey developed a unique X-ray imaging technology for high-speed real-time tomography (RTT) during 1997 to 2005. The originating research developed new X-ray methods for tomographic imaging of multiphase flow in pipes. RTT was then applied to security X-ray imaging, specifically the high-speed screening of aircraft passenger baggage. As a direct result of the research, a spin-out company from the University, CXR Ltd, was formed, and it was later acquired by Rapiscan Systems.
Surrey's imaging technology is now approved for use for automated explosives detection in the European aviation sector. In 2009, a prototype high-speed baggage system was trialled at Manchester Airport, which resulted in certification in 2012. The research has made a significant economic impact by leading to technology that created jobs in a purpose-built factory.
The development of microelectronic sensor arrays for biological applications, pioneered at the University of Glasgow, is central to a unique gene sequencing system developed by Ion Torrent. The Ion Torrent personal genome machine is a bench-top system that, compared to optically mediated technologies, is cheaper and easier to use. Ion Torrent was founded in 2007 and bought by Life Technologies in 2010 for $725M; they, in turn, were bought by Thermo Fisher for $13Bn, citing Ion Torrent as a motivation. Ion Torrent now has 62% of the bench-top sequencing market, estimated to be worth $1.3Bn in 2012.
Space science and medicine share a fundamental requirement for radiation sensors of the highest possible sensitivity. The development of imaging detectors for major X-ray observatories such as the European XMM-Newton and NASA's Chandra provided the impetus for a broad-based, intensive programme of deliberate technology transfer from the Unit's Space Research Centre (SRC) into the life sciences and medicine. The resulting impact now extends far beyond the exploratory provision of prototype sensor technologies for biomedical researchers into the full-scale commercial exploitation of those technologies with industry partners in the UK and Europe and, in three separate cases, to early-stage patient trials. Impact is being delivered in clinical specialisms from oncology to ophthalmology; from neurotoxicology to emergency medicine. The impact delivery mechanisms — the hospital-based Diagnostics Development Unit (DDU) and the campus-based Bioimaging Unit — are themselves novel and have achieved national prominence as examples of best practice in the drive for economic return even from established blue skies research.
DualEELS™ is a recent advance in Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy (EELS) made possible by a successful collaboration between the University of Glasgow and Gatan, the world leader in electron spectroscopy systems for electron microscopy. The resulting Gatan GIF QUANTUM® and the ENFINIUM® electron microscope products, incorporating the novel DualEELS™ concept pioneered in Glasgow, have been a commercial success. Between the launch in 2009 and the end of 2011, 145 systems have been delivered to universities, research institutes and industry at a total market value of over US$7.5M. The market penetration of the DualEELS™ technique has been very high. In 2012, DualEELS™ units were delivered with over 70% of all GIF/EELS systems sold. These systems are used routinely for R&D, quality control and failure analysis in firms such as AMD, Intel and Samsung, and for development of the advanced materials and devices key to modern society in a wide range of industrial sectors.
Professor Holland's group, the Centre for Electronic Imaging (CEI), has a long-established collaboration with UK-based imaging specialist e2v that has enabled the company to grow its business in international space missions and increase competitiveness. The CEI has helped develop e2v's understanding of the processes at work in imaging sensors, and improved image sensor designs and test methodologies. CEI has also studied space radiation damage on the sensors, trained more than 30 engineers in testing of e2v products, and was instrumental in the company's successful £3.8m Regional Growth Fund award in 2012 — funding that will create around 100 jobs by 2016.
The development by Cambridge University staff of compact semiconductor sources and detectors of Terahertz radiation has opened up this part of the electromagnetic spectrum to commercial use for the first time, enabling many applications. In medicine these applications include the analysis of drugs and the detection and imaging of cancer; in security applications the detection and imaging of explosives; and in the semiconductor industry the detection and imaging of buried defects in semiconductor wafers. High power Terahertz lasers are used in gas sensors, for imaging and as local oscillators. This technology has been exploited by a spin-off company TeraView which has 25 employees, has raised £16M in funding, £3.5M since 2008, and has sold 70 imaging systems, half since 2008 at an average cost of $300K each.
Impact: Economic gains PHYESTA designed 8% of the area of the computer chip for IBM's most recent BlueGene/Q supercomputer product. Global install base of design exceeds $500M.
Significance: Unique experiment in co-design at the cutting edge of technology. Adopted by both IBM and Fujitsu, who have led in Green500 energy efficiency and top500 supercomputer rankings.
Reach: This supercomputer architecture has been installed in labs in the UK, the US, the EU, and Japan and is accelerating computational science and advanced manufacturing around the globe. In the UK the BlueJoule system installed in the Hartree center at Daresbury is driving HPC uptake in the advanced manufacturing sector.
Beneficiaries: IBM, Fujitsu, computational science and the HPC community worldwide.
Attribution: This work was led by Dr Peter Boyle (School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh) in collaboration with Columbia University and IBM.