Translational alliance in biophotonics for cytometry

This project will establish a long term relationship between research translational centres - the Centre for Nanohealth at Swansea University and the Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics in Glasgow. This translational alliance will provide a commercialisation pipeline for photonics research concepts and devices applied to healthcare delivery. The strategic alliance will link to the significant portfolios of industrial partners currently held by the two translational centres and in doing so boost interactions between the optics business cluster in Scotland and the medical sector company base in Wales. The project will also take basic research outputs relating to a micro-laser system cytometer to a fully validated commercial prototype system. This will have application in cell based diagnostics such as blood cell counts.

The partnering of the Centre for Nanohealth (CNH) at Swansea and the Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics (FCAP) in Glasgow will create new opportunities through twinning of Fraunhofer expertise to the comprehensive set of established stakeholders in CNH. FCAP has a proven track-record in product innovation for industrial and academic partners. Over the past 2.5 years FCAP has won 14 (out of 16 submitted) industrially driven Innovate UK projects with the aim of accelerating the time to market for novel concepts and de-risking innovative products for industrial partners. 4 of these projects included direct academic partners and a further 6 are based on technology and products recently spun out of university research. Over the past 5 years CNH has delivered a substantial programme of collaborative industrial research and development to support the SME base in the EU convergence regions of West and North Wales and the South Wales Valleys. This has seen 318 enterprises receive assistance from which 103 long term development collaborations have ensued, the creation of 116 jobs and 14 start-up ventures within the Welsh economy and the inducement of £13.1 million of investment attributable to the work of the centre.