Log in
Full-waveform inversion (FWI) is a seismic technique for exploring the interior of the Earth; it has been developed at Imperial College over two decades, from a promising concept into a fully commercialised industrial process that has been widely adopted across the petroleum industry. The technique improves both the spatial resolution and the fidelity with which the sub-surface can be imaged in three dimensions. All the major multinational petroleum companies now use FWI internally, and all the major oil-field service companies offer the technology to the wider industry. Since its first commercial uptake in 2008, its application has influenced at least one hundred drilling decisions worldwide, and as a consequence it has generated additional value of at least $500M within the petroleum industry.
Methodological, algorithmic and interpretational advances in wavelet techniques for time series analysis are encapsulated in the research monograph by Percival and Walden (2000): "Wavelet Methods for Time Series Analysis" (WMTSA). Multiple language software packages have been developed from the book's contents, including the Spotfire S+ package from the major commercial software company TIBCO (2008-present). TIBCO Spotfire clients span many sectors and include major companies such as GE, Chevron, GlaxoSmithKline and Cisco. Further applications of the wavelet techniques developed in WMTSA include in the biomedical, conservation and financial sectors. WMTSA is used, for example, in functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging by GlaxoSmithKline, to monitor cracks in the dome of the UNESCO world heritage site Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral in Florence, and by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand in its analysis of measuring core inflation.
Aurox Ltd is an Oxfordshire spin-out company formed in 2004 by Prof Mark Neil (at Imperial since August 2002) with former colleagues from Oxford University. Its main product line consists of wide field optical sectioning fluorescence microscopes based on the principle of structured illumination and detection using patterned disks. The microscopes use conventional (lower cost) light sources and do not require a scanning system which sets them apart from competitors. Research at Imperial has impacted on the design of disk patterns for optimising performance and has played a critical role in bringing these microscopes to market. Aurox's systems are supplied to and marketed by Carl Zeiss (as VivaTome™) and Andor Technology (as Revolution DSD™) for application in the biomedical sciences, generating successful sales over the period 2008-2012 and enabling Aurox to embark on a second-generation development programme. Since 2008 Aurox have sold more than 150 units with market value in excess of £3M. The majority of this £3M in sales have been since 2010 when an optimisation step which was developed and devised at Imperial College was incorporated into the Aurox products.
Molecular Vision Ltd ("MV"), which was spun-out of Imperial Innovations, develops simple-to-use, point-of-care diagnostic devices (known as the BioLED™ platform) that quickly produce lab-quality information from a single sample of bodily fluids. Since 2008 MV has validated the platform, including demonstration of its CardioplexTM triple test for myoglobin, CK-MB and troponin-I in a serum sample, and undertaken >£1.5M of contract work for a variety of customers including Acrongenomics Inc, Microfluidic ChipShop and L'Oreal; addressing analysis problems relating to kidney and cardiac health, pathogen identification and cosmetics. During the REF period the Company has generated a total of over £3.4m in investment, contract revenue and non-UK grant funding and created greater than 50 man years of UK employment, primarily at the PhD level. Abingdon Health Group acquired a majority stake in MV in 2012 as part of its strategy to create a fully integrated business in the UK that is able to compete in the large and global immunodiagnostics market.
Imperial researchers in Prof Paul French's photonics group demonstrated one of the first practical FLIM instruments in 1997 using a prototype gated optical intensifier (GOI) developed by Kentech Instruments Ltd and a home-built solid-state ultrafast laser. They subsequently pioneered the use of ultrafast supercontinuum sources (USS) for FLIM. Today wide-field time-gated FLIM is a commercial success and is being widely applied for biomedicine, including for imaging of diseased tissue [e.g. 5] and for FRET (Fluorescence resonance energy transfer) microscopy to assay protein interactions [e.g. 3, 4]. This research thus helped translate FLIM to a wider community, highlighting the potential for tissue imaging, cell biology and drug discovery. It stimulated about £5M of GOI sales for Kentech [section 5, source A], with whom they developed time-gated FLIM technology and applications, and millions of pounds worth of sales of supercontinuum sources for Fianium Ltd [B].
A spin-out company, Ingenia Technology Ltd, was launched in 2005, to bring the technique now known as Laser Surface Authentication (LSA) to market. LSA is used to detect and prevent forgeries by allowing a unique, naturally occurring and uncopyable identity code to be read from material surfaces. It is particularly useful for fighting counterfeiting and smuggling of high-value documents and products and as such makes an important contribution to (i) industrial and consumer safety, (ii) commercial revenues and (iii) countering criminal activity. Organisations and companies contracted to use Ingenia's LSA technology include the pharmaceutical firm Bayer, carton manufacturers CARTONDRUCK and Grafiche Bramucci, Swiss precious metal refiner PAMP and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Researchers at Imperial College London have established a spin-out company called Ionscope Ltd which develops and sells Scanning Ion Conductance Microscopes (SICM). This is a novel technology that can (i) characterise live cells and their derivatives non-destructively during differentiation and development, (ii) correlate biophysical features at unprecedented resolution with detailed transcriptional information on a single cell level, and (iii) steer cell fate by mechanical stimulus. Other high magnification techniques interfere with or kill living cells, whereas SICM is benign, allowing living cells to be studied over long periods, making it a highly desirable technology for all groups working within biomedical research. The technique has application in the study of living processes at nano-scale, which to date has included neurons, heart muscle, kidney, sperm and stem cells. Ionscope Ltd sales since 2009 have totalled [text removed for publication], with the company registering a 20% increase in its revenue over the past 5 years.
Molecular Vision Ltd (MV), an Imperial Innovations spinout, has developed a low-cost technology for multiplexed analysis on bodily fluids. The BioLED™ platform rapidly delivers lab-quality information from a single-sample point-of-care diagnostic device. Since 2008 MV has validated the platform, including demonstration of its Cardioplex™ triple test for myoglobin, CK-MB and troponin-I in a serum sample, and undertaken > £1.5M of contract work for a variety of customers including Acrongenomics Inc, Microfluidic ChipShop and L'Oreal. A further £1.2M in non-UK and £2.6M in UK equity investment and > £660K in non-UK grant funding has been injected via MV into the UK economy during the REF period, securing > 50 person years' employment. MV is now a key component of the Abingdon Health Group's (AHG's) strategy to create a fully integrated UK business to compete in the multi-billion pound global immunodiagnostics market. Agreements with a leading European pharmaceutical company and a large multi-national chemical company, in both cases to co-develop point-of-care diagnostic tests in the UK, are now underway.
Locust and grasshopper outbreaks can form swarms containing billions of insects, creating feared and damaging agricultural pests. Following research at Imperial College London, the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium acridum was developed into an oil formulated product (`Green Muscle®') that could be applied by ground-based and aerial spray equipment at ultra-low volume (ULV) rates, when locust and grasshopper populations periodically increased. Green Muscle® has since been used to treat locust outbreaks in Israel and five southern African countries. Green Guard®, an associated mycoinsecticide marketed in Australia, has been used extensively to control locusts in regions where there are land use limitations on chemical pesticides. Both Green Musclef6da and Green Guardf6da are supplied by Becker Underwood. Besides the success of Metarhizium as an effective, environmentally-friendly locust control option, substantial science and enabling technology ensued, that should accelerate the development of other mycopesticides as important alternatives to currently beleaguered chemical pest control methods.
The Space & Atmospheric Physics (SPAT) group's magnetometer laboratory at Imperial has developed a small and lightweight magnetic field instrument intended to be flown on future generations of extremely small satellites or planetary landers. The instrument will be used for planetary research or plasma physics in the space environment, and also has application for attitude determination on satellites in Earth-orbit, by comparison with the geomagnetic field (`digital compass'). In 2010 Imperial Innovations granted Satellite Services Ltd (now the SSBV Aerospace and Technology Group) an exclusive 3-year license to market the design for the commercial satellite sector. Satellite Services have sold seven units (circa. € 10,000 per unit) with further commercial sales anticipated in the coming years. Sales of the device have contributed significantly to SSBV's company turnover, indicating the economic impact of the SPAT group's research.