Cancer Research Technology partners to commercialise imaging technology

Collaboration agreed

Cancer Research Technology Limited (CRT), the technology transfer arm of the charity Cancer Research UK, has joined forces with the technology development specialist The Technology Partnership plc (TTP) to commercialise new lens-free imaging equipment called CyMap.

CyMap is able to detect a range of particle types in a solution and holds the potential to be used in medical diagnostics systems to detect, quantify and analyse medical samples such as blood or bacteria. 

The technology is based on the principle that when illuminated using a simple light source, particles such as cells or pathogens in a sample create light diffraction and interference patterns that can be recorded by a charge-coupled device, a type of digital camera, and then analysed using computer algorithms.

This enables scientists to count the number of particles in a sample, and also to monitor changes over time, such as location, movement and division of cells. CyMap may also be developed to monitor bacterial contamination, the presence of other pathogens, or to count red and white blood cells. One of the other advantages of CyMap technology is that it can be easily miniaturised and integrated with microfluidic systems.

Borivoj Vojnovic, one of the inventors of the technology at Oxford University’s Gray Institute for Radiation Oncology and Biology, said, “This new generation of imaging technology will hopefully be much smaller, cheaper and easier to use than the existing alternatives, which are usually only available to scientists and pathologists in larger well equipped bioscience laboratories.”

“We envisage CyMap working well as a hand-held device which should make the equipment accessible and affordable for more people working in cancer and other health-related disciplines.”

The technology was developed by members of the publicly funded Optical Biochips Consortium, at Oxford, Cardiff and Bangor universities. The intellectual property has been assigned to CRT, which has filed a patent to protect the academic work.

Under the terms of the agreement, CRT has awarded TTP an exclusive option to license and develop the CyMap technology. The Partnership will seek other commercial partners to develop and bring to market applications based on CyMap, either by direct licensing arrangements or through co-development partnerships. CRT and TTP will share the revenues arising from any future development and sales of the technology.

Paul Galluzzo, a consultant at TTP, said, “We specialise in commercialising technology that holds the potential to make a real difference in sectors such as clinical and consumer diagnostics, drug discovery, consumer products, digital printing, and communications.”

“CyMap is genuinely innovative and we believe it has great commercial potential, for example to enable new diagnostic platforms, and to introduce imaging capability to products where imaging is currently too expensive. The next stage will be to develop the technology for a range of specific product areas.”