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There are 125 million contact lens wearers worldwide and most use some form of disinfection system for their safe use, accounting for a $1.5 billion global market per annum. In 2008, an outbreak of infection caused by the amoeba Acanthamoeba led to the global recall of the contact lens solution Complete® MoisturePlus®. Dr Kilvington led the root-cause investigation into the outbreak showing, for the first time, that components in contact lens care formulations can cause Acanthamoeba to transform into the highly resistant cyst stage. In 2008, he was seconded to the manufacturer of the recalled solution in the USA to develop and launch a new lens care product (AMO RevitaLens®) which has significantly improved antimicrobial properties, notably against Acanthamoeba. The outbreak and our subsequent work has had a global impact on the contact lens industry and regulatory bodies, resulting in a greater awareness of the risks from Acanthamoeba, development of new test methodologies and safer care solutions in the prevention of blindness.
Nature's Raincoats is a physical exhibition and a website providing easily accessible information and resources. These entities have had extensive use within the public understanding of superhydrophobic surfaces (extremely repellent to water), including The Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition, Cheltenham Science Festival, The Big Bang Fair, British Science Festival and Techfest (India) — reaching thousands of people in the UK and overseas. As well as impacting on improved public awareness, the research informed website provides a direct route to research expertise for companies within the UK and internationally and extends good practice of working with industry e.g. Rolls Royce.
Dr Fiona Henriquez's research into the debilitating eye infection Acanthamoeba keratitis (AK) has significantly impacted on the handling of contact lenses and their cases to the benefit of the world's 125 million contact lens users. Her research findings have been ground-breaking for the research community and have featured widely in the media reaching audiences from scientists, industry professionals, the general public and individual contact lens users. The research has resulted in 2 patents and there are 3 non-disclosure agreements in place with companies relating to commercialisation projects. Related work on Acanthamoeba cysts has resulted in a fourth commercialisation project.
Automotive design analysis software based on qualitative reasoning research in the Advanced Reasoning Group at Aberystwyth is deployed at more than 200 automotive and aeronautic OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers world-wide. The software necessitates companies changing their process for performing design analysis, and companies are willing to do this because of the attendant benefits.
The major benefits of use of the software are early feedback on potential problems with the design of automotive systems, and improved safety of automotive designs. Related benefits are improved product time to market, and cost savings. A representative example of production savings of $2.5 million has been given for use of the software on a single product design, as well as Ford Motor Company's estimate of $20M per year saved in just their company.
Research at the University of Bradford has enabled many major vehicle and brake manufacturers to improve the design of their brakes and braking systems to increase customer satisfaction and sales, and reduce costs. Methods have been developed to predict the thermo-mechanical and dynamic performance of brakes and provide design improvements. Durable solutions have been developed for noisy brakes, which have reduced warranty costs for approximately ten international collaborating companies including Bentley, where a squeal noise from the front brakes of a new vehicle had prevented it from being released for production. Our research has been embedded into short courses, which have trained over 250 engineers since 2008 and is incorporated into Jaguar Land Rover's (JLR) professional training.
Agent-based computing is a new paradigm for building complex socio-technical systems composed of many interacting intelligent and autonomous components. New co-ordination and negotiation algorithms developed at the University of Southampton, have provided new methods for managing such interactions in a flexible manner. This study focuses on their applications in two new start-up companies (Aerogility and Aroxo) in the defence, aerospace and civil contingency sectors (e.g. BAE Systems, Ministry of Defence and Hampshire County Council) in helping the GB Sailing Team to success at the 2012 Olympics, and in monitoring the environment for effects of climate change.
Research at Manchester has led to the development of a new class of high performance magnesium alloys based on the addition of rare-earth alloying elements. The new alloys combine low density and the highest strength of any magnesium alloy. Used to substitute for aluminium in aerospace and automotive they produce weight savings of 35% improving performance and reducing fuel consumption. Commercialisation of these alloys by Magnesium Elektron (ME), the international leader in magnesium alloy development, contributes over $20m per annum to company revenue. This includes development of the first commercial product available for bioresorbable magnesium implants, SynermagTM, launched in 2012.
Metamaterials deliver electromagnetic properties not available in natural materials. Transformation optics replaces the ray picture of Snell's law with the field lines of Maxwell's equations and is an exact description of classical optics. These powerful concepts, originally developed by Prof John Pendry, have engendered massive interest in the electromagnetic community encompassing radio frequency (RF) through to optical applications. His advice is sought by numerous companies and these concepts are now filtering through into products. In the last 5 years there has been great involvement of industry and particularly of the defence establishment in the USA who run several multi mullion dollar programs on metamaterials based at DARPA, WPAFB and Sandia. A company, KYMETA, was formed in 2012 to market this technology with $12M of investment funding, and is developing a laptop-sized antenna that gives instant Internet hotspot access anywhere in the world, with an ultimate application allowing cheap and fast Internet connections for the everyday consumer. In the UK, BAE Systems is using metamaterials for several applications including compact, directional antennas.
XeraCarb Ltd is a spin-out company formed in 2011 to exploit a class of ceramic composite materials co-invented by Jones. These materials were first devised in 2008 via a Materials and Engineering Research Institute (MERI) Knowledge Transfer activity and developed from 2009 onwards through a series of UK Ministry of Defence (UK MoD)-funded research projects. XeraCarb was spun out after the underpinning research won a national award in 2011 as the most promising UK materials system for commercialisation. The applications for XeraCarb's materials range from body- and vehicle-armour to kiln furniture and wear-resistant components. The company has attracted significant venture capital investment and is valued at over £1m. It has set up an independent production facility, has appointed employees, has been awarded a TSB grant, has materials undergoing trials in respect of a number of applications, and has delivered its first orders.