£3.7m available for photonics-based healthcare innovation

Source: www.cabume.co.uk

The Technology Strategy Board (TSB) is to oversee the investment of £3.7m into new projects that apply innovative photonics technologies to solve challenges in the health sector.

Covering a broad range of potential applications for the technology, the money will go to industry led partnerships between academia, industry and health providers under a two stage format.

The first stage is a competition for feasibility studies, including at least one small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) and lasting between six and 12 months. £1.5m will be allocated to this strand with individual project awards of up around £100k.

The second stage is for collaborative R&D projects – also including at least one SME – which last between 12 and 24 months. £2.2m is allocated to this strand with individual project awards of up to £750k available.

Iain Gray, TSB CEO, said: The involvement of clinical and industrial end-users in both the feasibility studies and R&D stages of the competition will help ensure not just that the NHS and clinicians fully understand the potential of next generation photonic technologies, but that they can bring their expertise to bear in the development of a range of new tools for less invasive diagnosis and surgery.

Topics covered include (though not exclusively):

• Therapy using light, for example, phototherapy for dermatological conditions, photodynamic therapy etc.
• Combining treatment with diagnostics – theranostics, to locate and address problems
• Laser procedures in ophthalmology, for example, correction for near and far-sightedness in vision, photorefractive keratectomy, and general surgery such as endovascular surgery and gastro-intestinal surgery
• Oncology (excluding in-vivo imaging)
• Laser for manufacture of medical devices, for example stents, catheters and structuring of prosthesis
• Genomic research and drug discovery
• Microbiology (viral and bacterial analysis)terilisation using light sources
• Novel biomedical materials that change properties after light treatment
• In-vitro diagnostics, for example, using optical microscopy and spectroscopy for cell-based studies to identify and treat diseases such as cancer and neurodegenerative diseases.

Further information here: http://www.innovateuk.org/content/competition/photonics-for-health.ashx