̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - invention

Immorality and invention: the “great stem cell debate”

lw355 — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 09:32:44 +0000

Human stem cell research is a thriving field of science worldwide – holding promise for treating diseases such as diabetes, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease, as well as for furthering our understanding of how we develop from the very earliest stages of life.

But using human embryonic stem (ES) cells to improve the health of other humans has also been the subject of comment, criticism and even court cases. Time magazine dubbed the “complexity and drama” surrounding these cells as the “Great Debate”.

Most notably, the field witnessed the 2001 restriction on funding for ES cell research in the USA by President Bush and the lifting of the ban in 2009 by President Obama. Then in 2011, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) banned the patenting of inventions derived from human eggs or their equivalent on the basis that they were human embryos, the commercial exploitation of which “would be contrary to… morality.”

While religious bodies and green lobbyists use patent law to elevate the status of the embryo, scientists argue that doing so threatens research that might benefit the health of millions.

International law permits states to refuse patents where necessary to protect morality in their territory. “Yet, how does a patent examiner or a court assess whether an invention is immoral to the point that, unlike other inventions, it can’t be patented? That is a particularly difficult question,” said Dr Kathy Liddell from the Faculty of Law. “It is a conundrum that runs headlong into the complex intersection of law and morality, intellectual property and philosophy.”

It is precisely this intersection that a new research centre in the Faculty will investigate. ̽��ֱ��new centre – funded by the Hatton Trust and the WYNG Foundation – will focus on medical law, ethics and policy relating to controversial issues such as patenting inventions involving DNA and body parts, the regulation of medical research and technologies, assisted reproduction and surrogacy, and the governance of ‘big data’ in the medical field, as well as the regulatory and legislative issues that stem cell research is likely to meet en route from the lab to the clinic.

“These areas need to be considered not as a post hoc rationalisation of events that have already happened, but alongside and ahead of technological advances,” said Liddell, who is centrally involved in the new centre, as well as being Deputy Director of the Faculty’s Centre for Intellectual Property and Law. “To complement the extraordinary science that is happening, we need to consider the ramifications of biomedical advances in a thorough and timely way.”

Liddell’s own research interests relate to the pathway that leads from the research bench to clinically effective treatments. She sees the law’s role as facilitating and supporting this pathway in morally responsible ways.

ES cells are useful because they are at the earliest point of human development and possess the full ‘regenerative toolkit’. In other words, they can develop into any type of cell in the human body. Although stem cells found in the adult human also retain the self-renewing ability to develop into specific tissues, they cannot develop into all the tissue types needed for regenerative medicine; the genetic information needed for some developmental pathways has already been shut down.

“ ̽��ֱ��CJEU was very reluctant to engage with the ethical and public policy debates surrounding human embryos. So it ended up answering the patent law questions with very little reasoning,” added Liddell.

“For me, this was the biggest problem with the judgment. ̽��ֱ��Court has to have the courage, skills, wisdom and accountability to face up to the degree of judicial activism and policy shaping that is inevitable in these controversial areas. Likewise, citizens, researchers and NGOs have to accept that judges have to make difficult ‘calls’ in the face of moral and scientific uncertainty. They simply can’t please everyone in a morally pluralist society.”

Julian Hitchcock, a specialist in life science intellectual property at London law firm Lawford Davies Denoon, who advises government and the Wellcome Trust on stem cell law, agrees: “ ̽��ֱ��problem I see is that the CJEU’s decision sends the message that scientists engaged in stem cell research are immoral. Moreover, the CJEU’s decision is being used to attempt wider assaults on research, such as in a Citizens’ Initiative called ‘One of Us’ which suggested that the principle of human dignity applies from the point of conception. Had this initiative succeeded, not only would it have undermined research funding, but it would also have impeded the fulfilment of urgent Millennium Development Goals.”

Meanwhile, the great stem cell debate continues, with a recent challenge in the High Court by the International Stem Cell Corporation over a decision by the Patent Office that unfertilised human eggs that have been stimulated to divide (turning them into so-called parthenotes) be included in the term ‘human embryos’. ̽��ֱ��implication is that parthenote inventions would also fall within the CJEU’s zone of unpatentable inventions. ̽��ֱ��High Court referred the issue to the CJEU and, in July this year, the Court was advised to reject part of the decision by the Advocate General.

“It’s a very complex area of the law – both highly technical and highly controversial. By supporting people to develop expertise in the life sciences and the law, we can better respond to these important discussions,” said Liddell.

Hitchcock added: “Formulating laws and policies that are responsive to the needs of research, and which carry the support of the public, requires a deep understanding of the ways that biology and law intersect, as well as imaginative thinking, powerful advocacy and the courage to fight an often embattled corner.”

“ ̽��ֱ��quintessential justification for patent protection has always been that it’s important for protecting investment in research and commercialisation,” said Liddell.

“We have yet to see whether the lack of patent protection for inventions involving human embryos has had a chilling effect on the transition of ideas to clinical realities, or whether it has nudged research in new, but similarly effective, directions that avoid the moral dilemmas and legal uncertainties of using embryos. We may never know – it is very difficult to gather this sort of empirical data. But for society to benefit properly and fully from medical advances, we do know that we need to be ready to enter any and all debates that wrestle with their ethical and moral implications.”

Inset images: Human embryonic stem cells via Wikimedia; Dr Kathy Liddell

Human stem cell research holds promise for combating some of the most recalcitrant of diseases and for regenerating damaged bodies. It is also an ethical, legal and political minefield.

How does a patent examiner or a court assess whether an invention is immoral to the point that, unlike other inventions, it can’t be patented? That is a particularly difficult question

Kathy Liddell

̽��ֱ��District

Mines

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page. For image rights, please see the credits associated with each individual image.

Yes

Researcher gets green light for new Hep B test

bjb42 — Fri, 21 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Developed by Cambridge researcher Dr Helen Lee, the inexpensive test delivers accurate while-you-wait results and allows doctors to take immediate action - circumventing the need to send samples away for laboratory analysis.

With around 400 million people worldwide estimated to carry the disease, the Hepatitis B Rapid Test could revolutionise detection of the condition in poorer countries.

Dr Helen Lee from Diagnostics for the Real World (DRW), who led the development of the test said: "Our test is simple, quick, inexpensive and can survive very hot conditions for many months - all vital factors when you are working in poorer parts of the world".

Dr Lee, who works at the ̽��ֱ��'s Diagnostics Development Unit, set up DRW in 2002. ̽��ֱ��group has already launched a rapid test for Chlamydia that is currently sold within the EU and many other countries around the world. Other tests in the pipeline include rapid tests for the detection of HIV and influenza.

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is highly infectious and is endemic in many parts of the world. In the UK alone, one in 1,000 people are infected and in China and Africa as many as one in six people carry the virus.

Spread through contact with infected blood or other body fluids, including sexual contact, infection rarely kills but can cause serious health problems and places enormous strain on healthcare resources.

Compared with existing diagnostics, which involve sending patient samples away to laboratories for analysis by skilled technicians using expensive machinery, the new Hepatitis B Rapid Test, developed with funding from the Wellcome Trust, uses a dipstick technology to deliver an accurate diagnosis on-site within half an hour and can be used with minimal training.

According to Professor Baruch S. Blumberg, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1976 for the discovery of the Hepatitis B virus and the invention of the HBV vaccine said: "Approval of the new Hepatitis B Rapid Test is positive news for the estimated 400 million HBV carriers worldwide."

"HBV infection and the diseases related to it are solvable problems. ̽��ֱ��Hepatitis B Rapid Test developed by Diagnostics for the Real World can make a significant contribution to the solution."

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge's Diagnostics Development Unit (DDU) was established a decade ago by a group of industry scientists who worked at a multinational diagnostic company. Its aim is to develop innovative tests that are rapid, simple, cost-effective and more sensitive than currently available rapid tests.

This new generation of point-of-care tests is intended to detect infectious agents that cause serious health problems in resource-limited settings, particularly in developing countries.

A ‘dipstick’ test that detects Hepatitis B within 30 minutes – and could be used in some of the world’s poorest countries – has been given the green light for use in the European Union.

Our test is simple, quick, inexpensive and can survive very hot conditions for many months - all vital factors when you are working in poorer parts of the world.

Dr Helen Lee

US Army Africa from Flickr

U.S. Army medical researchers take part in World Malaria Day 2010, Kisumu, Kenya, April 25, 2010

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Yes

Plastic Logic: from innovation to impact

bjb42 — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��path from innovation to impact can be long and complex. Here we describe the fascinating story behind the development of a new type of electronic reader.

̽��ֱ��story of Plastic Logic started in the mid-1980s when Professor Sir Richard Friend – then a lecturer in the Department of Physics at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge – began to work on organic semiconductors [see Glossary below]. ‘My interest was pure curiosity,’ says Friend, who is now the Cavendish Professor of Physics at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. He was interested, he explains, in gaining a basic understanding of how electrons might be made to move in carbon-based semiconductors, rather than being driven by the prospect that his research might be commercially useful.

Semiconductors – materials that conduct electricity under some conditions but not others – are used to make the integrated circuits that run computers and other electronic devices. Silicon is the best known semiconductor but, in the 1960s, researchers discovered that some organic molecules also behave as semiconductors. Specifically, small molecules that contain carbon atoms linked by alternating single and double bonds – so-called conjugated molecules – behave as semiconductors because some of their electrons are delocalised and ‘shared’ throughout the molecule. Friend wanted to know whether polymers made from building blocks of conjugated molecules would also behave as semiconductors. ‘We were interested in this type of molecule because we thought that, if they did behave as semiconductors, we might be able to use them to make electronic devices simply by dissolving the polymers in a solvent and then painting them onto a surface,’ says Friend.

By 1988, Friend’s research group had managed to make a transistor from the conjugated polymer polyacetylene. But, notes Professor Henning Sirringhaus, Hitachi Professor at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and Friend’s colleague since 1997, ‘the performance of this polymer or plastic transistor was very poor because the speed at which electrons and holes move through polyacetylene – a property called mobility – is much lower than in silicon. Plastic transistors were pretty much a scientific curiosity at that point, although they did provide a useful device for studying the electrical properties of new materials.’

A serendipitous discovery

Friend’s team now started to investigate whether better transistors could be made from other conjugated polymers. ‘We thought that a poorly studied compound called poly(p-phenylene vinylene), PPV, looked promising,’ says Friend, ‘and we began a collaboration with Andrew Holmes, a natural products scientist then working in the Department of Chemistry in Cambridge, to make PPV and to use it to make transistors.’

Unfortunately, PPV was not ideal for transistors – it was too good an insulator. But rather than giving up on PPV, the researchers decided to measure its insulating properties. ‘Instead of making a parallel electrode arrangement as we do for transistors, in February 1989 we made a stacked electrode arrangement as we do in diodes and sandwiched the PPV between the two electrodes to measure its insulating abilities,’ explains Friend.

By good fortune, Dr Jeremy Burroughes, who had made the first polyacetylene transistors while a PhD student in Friend’s laboratory, used a thin, semi-transparent layer of aluminium to make the top electrode in this PPV-containing device. When Burroughes (who is now the Chief Technology Officer at Cambridge Display Technology, CDT) applied a voltage to the device, he unexpectedly saw green light coming through the electrode. Friend immediately contacted Dr Richard Jennings (Director of Technology Transfer and Consultancy Services, Cambridge Enterprise Ltd) in what was then the ̽��ֱ��’s industrial liaison office to tell him about the strange, light-emitting piece of plastic and to ask for advice on patenting this discovery.

‘As soon as Richard explained what he had seen, we began to think about applications,’ says Jennings. ‘Plastic light-emitting displays, light-emitting clothing, plastic TV screens – it didn’t take much imagination to see how these polymer light-emitting diodes [P-LEDs] might be used and my advice was to patent the invention immediately.’ A particular appeal of light-emitting plastics, say both Friend and Jennings, was that these materials could be solution-processed or painted over a large area, a much simpler process than that needed to make liquid crystal displays (LCDs), the up-and-coming display technology in the late 1980s.

Patents for P-LEDs were filed in April 1989 and April 1990. Then, in October 1990, the researchers published a letter in the journalNatureentitled ‘Light-emitting diodes based on conjugated polymers’. ‘ ̽��ֱ��rest of the world simply dived in after we published. We had scores of imitators and our patent was challenged on several occasions,’ says Friend.

But, despite the academic interest in P-LEDs, Friend failed to find a UK electronics company to license and develop the invention. ‘It wasn’t that the companies weren’t willing to license the patent,’ stresses Friend. ‘It was more that they did not see organic light-emitting diodes as a core business and I was concerned that they would simply sit on our idea and not do the work needed to develop it. ̽��ֱ��quickest single way to kill a good idea is to put it into the wrong hands,’ comments Friend.

So, in 1992, Friend, with help from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and local seed venture capital, founded CDT. Although the original intention was that CDT would be a materials manufacturing company, CDT has concentrated on developing new technologies and licensing them to other companies. For example, in association with various industrial partners, CDT has developed a method to make P-LED displays using inkjet printing, thin-film transistors to stimulate the P-LED-containing pixels in displays, and polymers that emit red or blue light when stimulated instead of green light. In 2004, CDT was floated on the NASDAQ National Market and, in 2007, it was acquired by the Sumitomo Chemical Company, which maintains substantial R&D activity in and around Cambridge.

Importantly, says Friend, a strong symbiotic relationship has developed between CDT and the scientists working in the ̽��ֱ��: ‘Over the years, we have sent a lot of ideas to CDT but in return we have had access to the materials and methods that CDT has developed and this has helped us to push our fundamental research along much faster than would have been possible if we had had to do everything in the ̽��ֱ��.’

Back to transistors

While P-LEDs were being developed, some work continued in Cambridge and elsewhere on plastic transistors. Because silicon-based transistors were so good, explains Sirringhaus, ‘there wasn’t any commercial drive to work on plastic transistors and probably fewer than ten groups worldwide were working on the problem.’ Adds Friend, ‘it was really a matter of waiting for new materials to be made, waiting for the technology and science to develop to a stage where we could take the transistors forward.’

Then, in 1997, a way was found to increase the mobility of polymer semiconductors. ̽��ֱ��problem with the original polymer semiconductors had been that the long-chain molecules within these substances were disordered – ‘like a bowl of spaghetti’, says Sirringhaus. As the charge moved through this disordered mass, it encountered configurations where it didn’t know where to go and this reduced the material’s mobility. ̽��ֱ��polymer chains were disordered because, to process polymer solutions,

flexible side chains have to be attached to the polymer chains. Unfortunately, these side chains made the polymer disordered and electrically poorly conducting. ̽��ֱ��1997 breakthrough was the discovery of a way to deposit materials from polymer solutions that consist of alternating layers of conjugated polymers lying in a plane and insulating side chains. ‘ ̽��ֱ��mobility in the conjugated plane can be very high and it doesn’t matter about the mobility elsewhere in the structure,’ explains Sirringhaus.

Although the demonstration that the mobility of polymer semiconductors could rival that of inorganic semiconductors like silicon was important, before the researchers could persuade large companies or venture capitalists to invest time and/or money in their discovery, they still had to show that their new material could be used to make transistors in a practical manner.

‘At that time, we were developing methods to use inkjet printing to deposit P-LEDs onto substrates so we started to investigate whether the same process could be used to print transistors,’ says Sirringhaus. Within a few months, Sirringhaus and PhD student Takeo Kawase, on secondment from Seiko Epson, had printed a few transistors onto small substrate chips and had shown that these simple circuits performed reasonably well. ‘We now had a credible story on the materials and a credible way to make devices from them so we began to think about commercialisation,’ says Sirringhaus. Indeed, says Friend, ‘I had a strong sense that the future seminal events in the development of organic transistors were going to be engineering events, not science events, and I believed that these were most likely to happen in a well-focused industrial environment.’

Plastic Logic is founded

With this in mind, the researchers approached the entrepreneur and venture capitalist Dr Hermann Hauser, a co-founder of Amadeus Capital Partners (Cambridge) and an early investor in CDT, to see whether he would invest money in the commercial development of organic polymer transistors.

‘I remember visiting Richard and his group in the Cavendish,’ says Hauser. ‘They only had a few transistors working at this time [1998] and when they stopped working they prodded them with toothpicks!’ Luckily, Hauser, with his background in physics and interest in electronics, instantly recognised that Friend, Sirringhaus and their colleagues had made a very fundamental breakthrough and, with his help, Plastic Logic was formed in January 2000.

What is so special about plastic transistors?

When Plastic Logic started, all the electronic displays in the world were made on glass. Displays like those attached to computers contain millions of pixels, each of which is switched on and off by an individual silicon transistor. To produce these transistors, amorphous (non-crystalline) silicon is processed at high temperatures. Consequently, silicon-based transistors can only be produced on a substrate like glass that can withstand high temperatures; a plastic substrate would melt or deform. But displays that contain glass are heavy, rigid and fragile and unsuitable for use in anything but very small mobile displays. ̽��ֱ��production of plastic transistors, by contrast, does not require high temperatures so they can be laid down on plastic substrates that are much lighter, and more flexible and robust than glass. This means that large portable displays can be made by using plastic instead of silicon transistors.

Plastic transistors have a second advantage over silicon transistors when it comes to making large displays. Electronic circuits contain many layers that have to be accurately aligned with each other. In a large display, the dimensions of the substrate inevitably change slightly during the production process. Silicon-based displays are made using a lithographic process in which patterns are sequentially deposited onto substrates using metal masks. Unfortunately, any small changes in the dimensions of the substrate during the production process mean that the masks do not line up accurately and the resultant display is defective. With displays that contain plastic transistors, computers drive the inkjet printers that make the various layers of the device so it is possible to allow for changes in the substrate’s dimensions.

From single transistors to an electronic reader

‘When Plastic Logic was founded,’ says Jennings, ‘there wasn’t a clear business plan but Hermann Hauser was a very far-sighted investor who, knowing the track record of Richard Friend and Henning Sirringhaus, was willing to put money into their company to see where it would go.’ Over the next few years, Plastic Logic raised considerable sums of money to support its work and by 2006 it had developed its plastic transistor technology sufficiently to produce a display containing a million transistors. It had also developed an application for these displays – a plastic electronic reader. Since 2006, Plastic Logic has raised more than US$100 million to build a large manufacturing plant in Dresden (Germany); its research and development department still remains in Cambridge but its corporate headquarters is now based in Mountain View (California, USA). Trials of the electronic reader with key customers should be completed by the end of 2009 and commercial production will be rolled out in 2010.

̽��ֱ��electronic reader, which has an A4 screen that is about as heavy and thick as a sheet of paper, uses an ‘active matrix display’, an array of pixels in which each pixel contains minute plastic capsules filled with a liquid that contains black and white particles. These particles have different charges so that when an electric current is applied to a pixel, either the white or the black particles move to the front of the capsule and the pixel appears white or black. A plastic transistor behind each pixel applies the electric charges and the whole device is printed onto a thin, flexible sheet of plastic.

Plastic Logic’s electronic reader will enable users to read their own documents anywhere and will give them access to newspapers and books and, according to Friend, Sirringhaus and Hauser, it has several advantages over existing electronic readers such as Amazon’s Kindle. Its display is lighter and more robust than the glass-based displays in other readers and, because the display is bigger than those in other readers, it is more suitable for accessing newspapers. Also, the device uses very little energy because, unlike other readers, the display in the Plastic Logic reader does not need a back light. Consequently, once a page is set, it can remain in place without consuming any energy. Thus, users should be able to take a Plastic Logic reader away on holiday, for example, without having to take a battery charger.

Other hopes for plastic electronics – the need for continuing basic research

Plastic Logic should produce several hundred thousand electronic readers in 2010 and, in later years, it could be producing millions of units. But Hauser believes that plastic electronics will have much broader applications in the future. While Plastic Logic was developing its electronic reader, he explains, basic research was continuing in the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, where Sirringhaus’ group recently made an important breakthrough by discovering how to make a CMOS plastic transistor.

‘CMOS’ stands for complementary metal oxide semiconductor, a type of semiconductor that can be used to produce a combined n-type and p-type transistor. This type of transistor is needed to build complex devices like computer processors but for many years it seemed that it would be impossible to build plastic transistors with the properties of CMOS transistors – polymer semiconductors were all p-type semiconductors because they all carried current in the form of holes. Then, in 2005, Sirringhaus and his colleagues showed that the reason why th

ere were no n-type polymer semiconductors was because the electrons were being trapped at the interface between the semiconductor and adjacent insulators. By studying this interface, the researchers were able to produce an n-type polymer semiconductor, which opened up the possibility of designing the CMOS circuits that are necessary for the development of a broad plastic electronics industry.

However, Friend, Sirringhaus and Hauser stress that relatively little is known about polymer semiconductors and, because these materials are so different from silicon, it is not possible to rely on established semiconductor physics to understand how they work. Thus, it is essential that fundamental research on polymer semiconductors continues to be funded within UK universities. This, together with improved governmental support for the companies involved in plastic electronics, should ensure that the UK’s current lead in the field of plastic electronics is retained and that the UK reaps the financial rewards of the groundbreaking, curiosity-driven basic research in which Friend, Sirringhaus and their colleagues excel.

Glossary

Conductor:a material that can carry an electric current.

Diode:an electronic component with two electrodes that conducts electric current in only one direction.

Insulator:a non-conductor of electric current.

Light-emitting diode (LED):a diode that emits light when current passes through it. LEDs are used in many electronic devices.

Liquid crystal display (LCD):a display technology in which a current passing through a liquid crystal solution makes the crystals line up so that light cannot pass through them.

Organic semiconductor:a carbon-based semiconductor.

Pixels:picture elements, the units from which images are made on televisions and computer monitors.

Plastic (or polymer) semiconductor:a semiconductor made from an organic polymer.

Plastic (or polymer) transistor:a transistor that contains a plastic semiconductor.

Semiconductor:a substance that conducts electricity only under some conditions. ̽��ֱ��conductivity of semiconductors can be increased by applying heat, light or a voltage. Ann-typesemiconductor carries current mainly in the form of negatively charged electrons. Ap-typesemiconductor carries current mainly as electron deficiencies calledholes; a hole has an equal and opposite electric charge to an electron.

Transistor:a semiconductor device used to amplify or switch electronic signals. A small current across one pair of terminals in a transistor controls the current at another pair of terminals, either amplifying the original current or turning the current on and off in a circuit.

̽��ֱ��path from innovation to impact can be long and complex. Here we describe the fascinating story behind the development of a new type of electronic reader.

‘Plastic light-emitting displays, light-emitting clothing, plastic TV screens – it didn’t take much imagination to see how these polymer light-emitting diodes might be used and my advice was to patent the invention immediately.’

Dr Richard Jennings

Plastic Logic

Electronic reader

A tale of two innovations

We are often taken aback by the sudden appearance of a new innovation that has clear economic or clinical impact. Just how did these innovations arise?

Academic scientists working in universities are driven to do their research for many reasons. Some see their research as a way to develop new drugs or to build more powerful computers, for example. Many academic scientists, however, are simply curious about the world around them. They may want to understand the intricacies of the immune system or how the physical structure of a material determines its properties at a purely intellectual level. They may never intend to make any practical use of the knowledge that they glean from their studies.

Importantly, however, even the most basic, most fundamental research can be the starting point for the development of materials and technologies that make a real difference to the everyday life of ordinary people and that bring economic benefit to the country. Indeed, said Dr Richard Jennings, Director of Technology Transfer and Consultancy Services at Cambridge Enterprise Ltd, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, ‘what universities are good at is fundamental research and it is high-quality basic research that generates the really exciting ideas that are going to change the world.’

But it takes a great deal of time, money and commitment to progress from a piece of basic research to a commercial product, and the complex journey from the laboratory to the marketplace can succeed only if there is long-term governmental support for the academic scientists and their ideas as well as the involvement of committed commercial partners and well-funded technology transfer offices.

Two particular stories illustrate the long and complex path taken from the laboratory to commercial success by two very different ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge innovations. In the case of Plastic Logic, basic research on materials called organic semiconductors that started in the 1980s and that continues today has led to the development of a new type of electronic reader that should be marketed in early 2010 and, more generally, to the development of ‘plastic electronics’, a radical innovation that could eventually parallel silicon-based electronics. For Campath, the journey started just before Christmas in 1979 in a laboratory where researchers were trying to understand an immunological concept called tolerance. Now, nearly three decades later and after a considerable amount of both basic research and commercial development, Campath-1H is in Phase 3 clinical trials for the treatment of relapsing–remitting multiple sclerosis.

‘Both innovations are likely to have profound impacts over the next two years and it is important to recognise the deep temporal roots of both,’ said Professor Ian Leslie, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research.

Professor Leslie highlighted that an important lesson to draw from these stories ‘is the need for universities and other recipients of public research funding to implement and develop processes to support the translation of discovery to impact or, more generally, to develop environments in which the results of discovery can be taken forward and in which external opportunities for innovation are understood.’

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Yes

Shielding children from HIV

bjb42 — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Stephen Gerrard, who recently graduated from Cambridge in chemical engineering and is an Engineers Without Borders UK volunteer, has contributed to the development of a modified nipple shield capable of disinfecting breast milk as it passes through. He now plans to continue work on the design as he takes up an MPhil at the ̽��ֱ�� this year.

̽��ֱ��device is the result of work at the International Design Development Summit (IDDS), a unique conference held at MIT last August. ̽��ֱ��Summit brings together engineers and field workers, both amateur and professional, to work on research projects aimed at developing prototype designs.

Gerrard, together with a team of 5 others, was assigned the task of creating a practical design for heating milk to deactivate the virus, following on from work being carried out by a research group at Berkeley, California.

"We quickly established the concern that this may be too lengthy for many women in developing countries so they might not have the time for it," he said.

Accordingly, his team began looking at other methods besides heat treatment that are being tested. They came across several potential compounds that could deactivate HIV in breast milk.

"Research has shown that copper and copper compounds can work," he said, "but another approach, carried out by a group at Drexel ̽��ֱ�� seemed more promising. Their research has focused on a compound called Sodium Dodecyl Sulphate (SDS), which can kill the HIV virus quickly and in fairly non-toxic concentrations."

̽��ֱ��new design adds a layer of non-woven material, such as cotton-wool, soaked in SDS to a conventional shield, typically used to make breast-feeding easier. ̽��ֱ��layer allows the virus to be deactivated without having to go through heat treatment.

Their project could also have benefits beyond prevention of HIV. "We were concerned that using our nipple shield could be stigmatizing, since it would identify a mother as HIV infected," says Gerrard "We're considering marketing it as a way to deliver medicines or micronutrient supplements to aid breast feeding. For example, they can also be used for iron or iodine deficiency."

Given that the modification is simple, as well as cost effective - it requires only that the cotton wool is replaced on a daily basis - the team's idea could provide a quick way to improve medicine delivery to babies. ̽��ֱ��invention provides a low-cost alternative to the use of syrups, for example, which are expensive and usually require refrigeration.

̽��ֱ��group are now looking for a lab to test the efficacy of their design and establish that the majority of the virus is deactivated on its passage through the layer. They have also made preliminary contact with the Institute for Pediatric Innovation in Boston, and are searching for a pharmaceutical company that will be interested in their invention.

Other members of the team include Tombo Banda, a mechanical engineer from Imperial College, Geoff Galgon of California Institute of Technology, Ryan Hubbard, a systems engineer from Olin College, Elizabeth Kneen, a mechanical engineer from Olin College and David Sokal, an experienced physician and public health specialist from Family Health International (FHI).

A novel method for preventing HIV transmission from mother to child has been devised with the help of a Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� engineer.

We were concerned that using our nipple shield could be stigmatizing, since it would identify a mother as HIV infected. We're considering marketing it as a way to deliver medicines or micronutrient supplements to aid breast feeding.

Stephen Gerrard

Cambridge ̽��ֱ��

Just milk

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Yes

Secrets of the inerter revealed

bjb42 — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

For years, the mysterious "J-Damper", a vehicle suspension device described as the F1 technical innovation of the year, was carefully codenamed and concealed to prevent it from being copied by rivals.

McLaren agreed an exclusive right with the ̽��ֱ�� to exploit the technology, but confidentiality restrictions ensured that other F1 teams were kept in the dark. Internet fan-sites and blogs began to buzz with speculation about what the device actually was.

Now, with the lifting of the confidentiality agreement, the secret of the "J-Damper" can finally be revealed. Cambridge Enterprise, the ̽��ֱ��'s commercialisation office, has signed a licence agreement with the American firm Penske Racing Shocks, enabling Penske to supply them to any team in F1.

In fact, the device was first conceived by its creator, Professor Malcolm Smith, as long ago as 1997 and raced for the first time by McLaren in 2005, when Kimi Raikkonen achieved a victory for the team at the Spanish Grand Prix.

̽��ֱ��term "J-Damper" itself was merely a codename to keep the technology secret from potential competitors for as long as possible. Its proper name is an inerter. Many specialists spent time and energy trying to establish what the "J" stood for; but in fact it was just a meaningless decoy added to keep opponents stumped.

Although they are currently being used to improve mechanical grip, inerters have a wide range of potential advantages, many of which are still being explored. Broadly, they offer greater flexibility in a vehicle's suspension system.

Standard suspension systems are based around two components - springs and shock absorbers (dampers). Together, these contribute to the car's ride and handling: they keep vehicle occupants comfortable even though the vehicle is traversing an uneven road surface and is subjected to acceleration and cornering.

No matter how the system is tuned, however, there is always a compromise taking place between handling, comfort and grip. Even in F1 cars, where comfort is less important, the suspension needs to be set to allow both sensitive handling, which requires a harder suspension, and a good mechanical grip, for which the suspension would normally be softer. ̽��ֱ��upshot is that there is still some oscillation as the load on the tyres varies, which impedes the vehicle's grip and therefore slows it down.

Professor Smith realised that this poor trade-off between handling, comfort and grip could be better resolved if a third type of component was added to a suspension system to make it more flexible: the inerter.

̽��ֱ��inerter looks superficially like a conventional shock absorber, with an attachment point at each end. For example, one end may be attached to the car body and the other to the wheel assembly. A plunger slides in and out of the main body of the inerter as the car moves up and down. This causes the rotation of a flywheel inside the device in proportion to the relative displacement between the attachment points.

̽��ֱ��result is that the flywheel stores rotational energy as it spins. In combination with the springs and dampers, the inerter reduces the effect of the oscillations and thus helps the car to retain a better grip on the road.

Though they remain the preserve of F1 for now, inerters have many other potential applications. In time, they could extend far beyond the realm of motorsport and be incorporated into conventional road vehicles and motorcycle steering systems, to name just two areas.

"I was nervous about talking about the idea at first because it seemed so elementary a concept," Professor Smith said. "It was very difficult to believe that nobody had thought of it before and I presumed that either it had been done already, or there was some sort of snag.

"As I discussed the idea with colleagues, however, I began to realise that it hadn't been done and it was possible to achieve this trade-off to improve vehicle suspension. ̽��ֱ��next question was can it be done - and once I had worked out what it should look like, that was a fairly simple matter. It's very pleasing that what began as a theoretical idea is now being used in motor sport, and hopefully it will gradually be incorporated into other types of vehicle as well."

A Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� invention which was kept a closely-guarded secret because of the hidden advantage it offered to a Formula 1 racing team is finally being made available for widespread use.

It was very difficult to believe that nobody had thought of it before and I presumed that either it had been done already, or there was some sort of snag.

Professor Malcolm Smith

jiteshjagadish from Flickr

Mclaren F1 Lewis Hamilton

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An invention to help the ageing eye

amb206 — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Progressive loss in accommodative power by the lens of the human eye – a condition known as presbyopia – affects almost everybody who enters middle age and interferes with their ability to focus on close objects. As we live longer and continue to pursue challenging visual activities, the demand for presbyopic correction is increasing.

̽��ֱ��effects of presbyopia are particularly felt by regular computer users – the screen lies at a middle distance, which varies as the subject’s posture alters and is rarely catered for by current presbyopic spectacles. Until now, the solution has been to use bifocal or varifocal lenses, but these offer limited fields of view at various fixed distances. Instead, the ideal presbyopic correction should provide a full field of vision with clear focus for any distance between infinity and the near point – and this is what has been accomplished by Dr Paul Meyer, in the Department of Ophthalmology, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge.

Developed in conjunction with NHS clinical engineers, the technology gives users a wide field of view with no distortion and high resolution at any distance. ̽��ֱ��new lenses are based on the simple optical principle that the air gap between a pair of nesting concave and convex lenses develops increasing positive power as it widens. A compact, low-friction movement above the bridge of the nose allows the wearer to focus easily using a single roller situated on either side of the frame. Dr Meyer is commercialising the technology through Cambridge Enterprise Ltd, who are looking for licensing partners or investors.

For more information, please contact Dr Iain Thomas (iain.thomas@enterprise.cam.ac.uk; Tel: 01223 760339) at Cambridge Enterprise Ltd.

Progressive loss in accommodative power by the lens of the human eye &ndash; a condition known as presbyopia &ndash; affects almost everybody who enters middle age and interferes with their ability to focus on close objects. As we live longer and continue to pursue challenging visual activities, the demand for presbyopic correction is increasing.

Baron Brian from flickr

Eye

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