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MacRobert Award
The UK's premier award for innovation in engineering
2008 Finalists
Touch Bionics
For its revolutionary i-LIMB Hand - the first
commercially available bionic hand. Many years in
development, the i-LIMB Hand is a prosthetic device
that looks and acts like a real human hand with five
individually powered digits and it heralds a new
generation in bionics and patient care.
The key innovation behind Touch Bionics' i-LIMB Hand
is the multi-articulating finger technology, which
has underpinned the product's resounding commercial
success since its launch. The i-LIMB Hand is
developed using leading-edge electronic and
mechanical engineering techniques and is
manufactured using high-strength plastics. The
result is a next-generation prosthetic device that
is lightweight, robust and highly appealing to both
patients and healthcare professionals.
The i-LIMB Hand started life in 1963 in a research
programme at Edinburgh's Princess Margaret Rose
Hospital to help children affected by Thalidomide.
Touch Bionic's core intellectual property is
patent-secured and, through the development of the
i-LIMB Hand, the company now leads the upper limb
prosthetics market in three core areas: cosmesis
(skin), controls and mechanical form factor.
"The i-LIMB Hand is one of the most compelling
devices in the world prosthetics market," says Touch
Bionics CEO Stuart Mead. "Since we launched it in
July 2007 over 200 patients have been fitted with it
all over the world - in just a few months it has
evolved from an exciting new technology into a new
benchmark in prosthetic devices."
Team members: Chief Executive Officer Stuart
Mead, Director of Research and Founder David Gow,
Project Manager Stewart Hill, Director of Technology
and Operations Hugh Gill and Director of Marketing
Phil Newman, all based at Touch Bionics in
Livingston.
www.touchbionics.com/
Johnson Matthey plc
For their compact catalysed soot filter for diesel
cars. Following up on their success as the winner of
the 2000 MacRobert Award for the Continuously
Regenerating Trap® - now the leading technology for
controlling soot emissions from trucks and buses -
the Johnson Matthey Team have turned their attention
to a much more challenging application.
The diesel engine is taking over Europe's car market
- more diesel cars are made here now than petrol -
they are more fuel efficient and produce less carbon
dioxide than the equivalent petrol version, although
there are concerns about the tiny soot particles
they produce. These can be trapped in a filter but
they are very difficult to efficiently remove at the
relatively very low temperature in a car exhaust.
Earlier filter designs were complex and heavy using
several units in individual housings. The Johnson
Matthey team has developed special catalysts and an
innovative precision manufacturing process that
combines catalyst and filter into a single unit that
is small enough to fit into the restricted space in
the engine compartment of a car. Here it can use all
the heat from the engine to control hydrocarbon and
carbon monoxide as well as soot emissions. The
compact soot filter is not only energy and materials
efficient to manufacture, in use it contributes to
reduced carbon dioxide emissions due to its high
thermal efficiency and much reduced weight.
"We have already exported over 1.5 million of these
filters for use in European cars ahead of new
emissions control legislation which comes into force
from 2009", says Johnson Matthey's Chief Scientist
Dr Martyn Twigg. "These alone will stop millions
kilogrammes of soot entering the atmosphere over the
life of these vehicles. We have built two new state
of the art plants in Royston Hertfordshire to
manufacture these products, and this has resulted in
the creation of 300 new jobs on the site".
Team members: Chief Scientist Dr Martyn Twigg,
Diesel Development Manager Dr Paul Phillips and
General Manager Sales and Operations Antoine Bordet,
all based at Johnson Matthey in Royston, Herts.
www.matthey.com
Owlstone
For their 'dime' sized chemical sensor on a silicon
chip that provides a miniature detection system for
trace amounts of a wide variety of chemicals.
Owlstone's chip can detect explosives at airports,
protect workers against gas exposure in heavy
industry or detect fires before they begin from
precombustion fumes.
Owlstone uses microprocessor-type manufacturing
methods to cram huge capability onto a single chip -
the sensor, which uses a using a technique called
Field Asymmetric Ion Mass Spectroscopy (FAIMS), can
easily be reprogrammed to look for different
chemical fingerprints. One of its most exciting
potential applications is a 'health breathalyser'
that will diagnose illness by analysing chemicals on
a patient's breath.
The company was spun out of Cambridge University in
2004 with $2 million and venture capital finance -
since then it has raised another $7 million and
built a world class team with offices in both the US
and UK.
"Our success in winning multiple contracts from the
US government illustrates not only the significance
of our technology innovation but also the scope of
its commercial potential," says Billy Boyle,
Owlstone's President Operations.
Team members and company co-founders: President
Operations Billy Boyle, President Products Andrew
Koehl and President Technology David Ruiz-Alonzo,
all based at Owlstone Ltd at the St John's
Innovation Centre in Cambridge.
www.owlstonenanotech.co.uk/
The Automation Partnership
For Polar, a new robotic system designed
specifically for the UK Biobank - the world's
leading programme to create a large-scale resource
for medical research.
For Biobank to work, Polar must keep 10 million
human blood and urine samples at a steady -80°C for
25 years but at the same time ensure any sample is
instantly accessible at any time. The team devised a
modular ultra low temperature compartment design to
hold the samples, which can be accessed
automatically. The whole system is cooled with
liquid nitrogen in a closed circuit and operates in
an ultra dry atmosphere to prevent frosting.
Biobanks of this size are intended to reveal the
underlying causes of a variety of diseases and may
shed light on many of the most common life
threatening and debilitating diseases such as
cancer, heart disease and diabetes as well as rarer
conditions, or those with less profile, such as
mental illness, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases
and motor neuron disease.
Thanks to its novel design, Polar ensures reliable
access to samples with no increase in temperature
when the drawers are opened so samples can be
requested as often as they are required. The samples
are protected even in the event of a power loss or
failure in refrigeration or robotics, and the
robotics are also protected from the ultra-cold
environment.
"Until now it has not been possible to automate a
repository with this unprecedented number of unique
specimens - over 20 tonnes in total - while
maintaining storage conditions," says Justin Owen,
chief engineer on the project. "Now that we have
achieved this breakthrough we plan to establish the
company as a leader in automated biological storage,
which is a major growth area."
Team members: Head of Hardware Engineering Justin
Owen, Senior Project Manager Robert Meaker, Engineer
Frank Tully, Software Engineer James Pilgrim and
Product Manager Peter Woods, all based at The
Automation Partnership in Royston, Herts.
www.automationpartnership.com/
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