104117MARIA: Safe, effective and painless breast cancer screening from an early ageClosedCollaborative R&DInnovate UKHow many females can you count within your family (if you are one, include yourself)? Grandmothers, mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, nieces, sisters in-law – the list goes on. Think wider: how many females are part of your group of friends? If the answer is 8 or more, statistics say that 1 of them will be diagnosed with breast cancer. Breast cancer has been the biggest cause of death in women. It could be you or a loved one – a wife, a mother, a daughter. Breast cancer is relentless, brutal and it can come without warning. The biggest reason for breast cancer death is late diagnosis. Sadly, most breast cancer patients are diagnosed at a late stage when the cancer is well established with a palpable tumour size. This is partly due to the inherent deficiencies of the current diagnostic technology X-ray mammography (XRM) which has relatively low sensitivity and specificity for tumours over non-cancerous tissue, which reduces the 5-year survival rates to a mere 15%. Furthermore, XRM is associated with a number of additional disadvantages: exposes the patient to ionizing radiation, is an uncomfortable procedure which can discourage attendance, and is relatively expensive. The MARIA™ project will develop and launch a non-invasive and a non-ionizing radiowave-based technology for the early, accurate, fast, comfortable and safe detection of breast cancer in women of all ages. Keywords/phrases – diagnostics, breast cancer, radiowaves