DNA detectives at the Wellcome/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute at the University of Cambridge may have found a way of predicting whether breast cancer patients would respond to anti-=cancer drugs called PARP inhibitors.

Researchers at Professor Steve Jackson’s commercially prolific lab have identified novel ‘Shieldin’ proteins that affect the response to treatment of  breast cancers caused by mutations in the BRCA1 gene.

The study published in Nature Cell Biology identifies the ‘Shieldin’ complex, so-called because it shields the ends of broken DNA and regulates DNA repair. 

Testing the levels of Shieldin in tumours could help predict whether they will respond to anti-cancer drugs called PARP inhibitors.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in the UK, with up to 10 per cent of hereditary cases due to inheriting a faulty cancer-causing gene, for example, mutations in the BRCA1 gene.

Individuals with BRCA1 mutations are at high risk of developing breast cancer and often opt for prophylactic breast removal, as was reported for Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie.

Previous research in Professor Jackson’s lab led to the development of PARP inhibitors, a new class of cancer therapy which is highly effective in treating cancers with these mutations. 

Unfortunately, drug resistance is a common response, and so his group set out to establish how this resistance might develop.

Using state-of-the-art CRISPR gene editing technology, the researchers scanned the human genome for factors which, when mutated, could cause drug resistance in cells that lacked BRCA1. One of these factors was the previously uncharacterised Shieldin complex.

BRCA1 is critical for performing the accurate type of DNA repair known as homologous recombination (HR). This is counterbalanced by an opposing ‘error-prone’ repair pathway known as Non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ). 

The researchers identified Shieldin as a new component of the NHEJ pathway. BRCA1-negative cells rely on this error-prone DNA repair pathway, which makes them susceptible to PARP inhibitors. 

If Shieldin is removed from these cells, the imbalance between the repair pathways is reversed, restoring the ability of the cell to perform DNA repair by HR, overcoming the toxicity of PARP inhibitors and therefore leading to drug resistance.

Professor Steve Jackson, whose group led the research, said: “There is a balance between repair factors like BRCA1 which mediate error-free DNA repair and Shieldin which acts as a barrier and must be removed to allow accurate HR.”

The researchers went on to look at tumours from breast cancer patients carrying the BRCA1 mutation. The study went on to show that resistance to PARP inhibitors can lead the same cancer cells to develop vulnerabilities to alternative cancer treatments, such as radiotherapy or platinum-based chemotherapy.

Professor Jackson concluded: “As we improve our understanding of these DNA repair networks and how they interact, we should be able to better predict the responsiveness of an individual patient’s tumour to specific therapies like PARP inhibitors, and ultimately personalise cancer therapy to achieve the maximal therapeutic response.”

The study was funded by the Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research UK.

• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: Professor Steve Jackson

DNA detectives at the Wellcome/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute at the University of Cambridge may have found a way of predicting whether breast cancer patients would respond to anti-=cancer drugs called PARP inhibitors.

Researchers at Professor Steve Jackson’s commercially prolific lab have identified novel ‘Shieldin’ proteins that affect the response to treatment of  breast cancers caused by mutations in the BRCA1 gene.

The study published in Nature Cell Biology identifies the ‘Shieldin’ complex, so-called because it shields the ends of broken DNA and regulates DNA repair. 

Testing the levels of Shieldin in tumours could help predict whether they will respond to anti-cancer drugs called PARP inhibitors.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in the UK, with up to 10 per cent of hereditary cases due to inheriting a faulty cancer-causing gene, for example, mutations in the BRCA1 gene.

Individuals with BRCA1 mutations are at high risk of developing breast cancer and often opt for prophylactic breast removal, as was reported for Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie.

Previous research in Professor Jackson’s lab led to the development of PARP inhibitors, a new class of cancer therapy which is highly effective in treating cancers with these mutations. 

Unfortunately, drug resistance is a common response, and so his group set out to establish how this resistance might develop.

Using state-of-the-art CRISPR gene editing technology, the researchers scanned the human genome for factors which, when mutated, could cause drug resistance in cells that lacked BRCA1. One of these factors was the previously uncharacterised Shieldin complex.

BRCA1 is critical for performing the accurate type of DNA repair known as homologous recombination (HR). This is counterbalanced by an opposing ‘error-prone’ repair pathway known as Non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ). 

The researchers identified Shieldin as a new component of the NHEJ pathway. BRCA1-negative cells rely on this error-prone DNA repair pathway, which makes them susceptible to PARP inhibitors. 

If Shieldin is removed from these cells, the imbalance between the repair pathways is reversed, restoring the ability of the cell to perform DNA repair by HR, overcoming the toxicity of PARP inhibitors and therefore leading to drug resistance.

Professor Steve Jackson, whose group led the research, said: “There is a balance between repair factors like BRCA1 which mediate error-free DNA repair and Shieldin which acts as a barrier and must be removed to allow accurate HR.”

The researchers went on to look at tumours from breast cancer patients carrying the BRCA1 mutation. The study went on to show that resistance to PARP inhibitors can lead the same cancer cells to develop vulnerabilities to alternative cancer treatments, such as radiotherapy or platinum-based chemotherapy.

Professor Jackson concluded: “As we improve our understanding of these DNA repair networks and how they interact, we should be able to better predict the responsiveness of an individual patient’s tumour to specific therapies like PARP inhibitors, and ultimately personalise cancer therapy to achieve the maximal therapeutic response.”

The study was funded by the Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research UK.

• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: Professor Steve Jackson

The UK’s trading relationship with China has gone from strength-to-strength in recent years, writes Alan Pain, head of exports for the East of England at the Department for International Trade. 

Exports have risen by over 15 per cent across the last year alone, making China our fifth largest trading partner.

This is partly due to growing appetite for British products among China’s expanding middle class, which is expected to reach a population of 600 million by 2020.

A report released by Barclays Corporate Banking earlier this year revealed that demand for British-made products in China has risen by 36 per cent over the past five years, with Chinese consumers perceiving British products to be of ‘superior quality’.

This increase contributed to East of England exports to China reaching a value of £2.7 billion in the first quarter of 2018 alone. In 2017, China imported more than £12 billion worth of goods from the region – an increase of almost £3 billion compared with 2016.

The wealth of opportunity, both existing and emerging, for businesses in the East of England is clear and many local businesses are already tapping into the demand and exporting their products to China.

However it can be hard to know where to start and there are a number of key things to consider when building a strategy for international trade in China, going beyond concerns about language barriers and geographical time differences.  

For example, firms must be aware of a concept referred to in China as guanxi. This refers to the importance of interpersonal relationships in Chinese business culture.

In addition, businesses must avoid viewing the Chinese market as a single, homogenous entity. China contains a number of distinct regional economies and as such, companies looking to maximise their products’ success will have to carry out careful research.  

One firm which has capitalised on Chinese demand for its goods is SG Controls. The Cambridge-based company designs and supplies equipment for the optical fibre manufacturing sector.

Optical fibre is used to transmit information from one place to another and is a fundamental part of the mobile telecoms and internet infrastructure. At the moment, half of the world’s optical fibre is going to China as they are installing cables across the country.

The business is set to double the volume of products it makes and has also created 40 new jobs at its site in Newton, Cambridgeshire in the last 18 months following a surge in international demand.

Exporting to China hasn’t been without its challenges for SG Controls. For example, designing and supplying the multiple towers involved in its projects involves high costs, and the business initially struggled to find the funding capacity to take on new contracts, with international customers reluctant to invest large amounts without a form of financial guarantee.

However the company worked with the Department for International Trade (DIT) to help it overcome these issues. It was also supported by UK Export Finance, which provided the financial support it needed to fulfil the significant order in China. DIT also provided introductions to potential new customers, to further boost its exports.

For businesses looking to export to China, we have a team of International Trade Advisers located across the East of England to help businesses navigate any new challenges.

• Companies can find information and a current list of opportunities through visiting great.gov.uk or contacting DIT East of England
E:  eastinfo [at] mobile.trade.gov.uk
T: 01707 398 398

Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC) has led a $10 million Series B funding in SWIM.AI, a San Jose-based edge computing company that is opening a research centre in Cambridge UK to take advantage of local the local technology talent pool.

Cambridge’s greatest ever tech business, superchip architect Arm, also participated in the round along with existing investors.

SWIM.AI provides edge intelligence software, which combines local data processing with analytics and machine learning to deliver real-time business insights.

The new funding will be used by SWIM.AI to launch a Cambridge-based AI R & D centre, capitalising on the expertise available in the Cambridge cluster, to accelerate product development, and expand sales and marketing into new verticals and geographies.

Edge computing is an emerging technology for processing data on sensors and control devices in a network closest to where that data is generated. 

Processing data at the edge, where it is captured, rather than transmitting that data to the cloud, reduces latency and bandwidth, and reduces cloud storage and computing costs.

Andrew Williamson of CIC said: “SWIM.AI has created an industry leading solution that will change the way manufacturers, service providers, enterprises, cities, IoT vendors and others consume and utilise data at the edge.

“The SWIM team is helping customers overcome edge data processing challenges and efficiently build edge processing applications. We are delighted to support Rusty, Chris and the team at SWIM.AI.”

In April, SWIM.AI announced the general availability of its edge software solution SWIM EDXTM, which enables customers to analyse high volumes of streaming edge data and deliver real-time insights that can easily be shared and visualised. 

SWIM EDX greatly reduces bandwidth, storage and cloud processing costs for large volumes of edge data. In addition, a developer software development kit (or SDK) makes it simple to create new real-time edge applications
SWIM.AI already has a number of customers who are using the EDX software to deliver edge intelligence to manufacturing, smart city, IoT, logistics and many other verticals.

“SWIM’s ability to analyse data and apply machine learning at the edge unlocks new IoT use cases by unleashing data that was previously too difficult, slow or expensive to send to the cloud for analysis,” said Damon Civin, Principal Data Scientist at Arm.

“Their solution complements the Arm Mbed IoT Device Management Platform and our mission of enabling organisations to seamlessly obtain and derive meaning from their IoT data.”

Rusty Cumpston, co-founder and CEO of SWIM.AI, added, “Demand for the EDX software is rapidly increasing, driven by our software’s unique ability to analyse and reduce data, share new insights instantly peer-to-peer locally at the ‘edge’ on existing equipment. 

“Efficiently processing edge data and enabling insights to be easily created and delivered with the lowest latency are critical needs for any organisation. We are excited to expand SWIM’s operations in Cambridge, and look forward to partnering with our new investors to shape the future of real-time analytics at the edge.”

Chris Sachs, co-founder and chief architect of SWIM.AI, said SWIM EDX is lightweight software that can be added to existing edge devices, creating a “powerful compute fabric for real-time data analysis, reduction, learning on any edge.”

• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: Andrew Williamson

Japanese funder Global Brain Corporation, which invested in GeoSpock’s recent Series A round, has intensified its push into the Cambridge technology cluster by backing a $14 million Series B financing for debugging software business Undo.

The funding was led by Cambridge Innovation Capital, with new investors Global Brain Corporation and Parkwalk Advisors joining the round.

The funding will be used to grow Undo’s software development team, accelerate its product development and expand its US operations. All existing investor groups participated, including Rockspring, Martlet, Sir Peter Michael (founder of Quantel, Classic FM and California’s Peter Michael Winery), the Cambridge Angels group and Jaan Tallinn (co-founder of Skype and Kazaa).

Undo is setting a new standard in software debugging through its program execution capture & replay technology. It allows vendors of complex Linux applications to quickly diagnose severe software failures in test or in production and fix critical bugs that are impossible to reproduce (and therefore fix) by any other means.

Undo’s solution supports C/C++ applications today and it plans to use part of the funding to expand its language support to include Java, Python and others. Greg Law, Undo’s CEO and co-founder, said: “This Series B funding round will allow us to scale our commercial and customer success capacity.

“When an application crashes at a customer site, it is often impossible to obtain a complete picture of what happened. Yet software engineers need to know exactly what blew up where if they are going to fix the issue.

“Instead of a development team flailing around with unhelpful log files and core dumps, leaving clients irate whilst they are waiting for a vital fix, engineers can capture critical production failures ‘in the act’ in the form of a recording, turning failures into 100 per cent reproducible events. The recording can then be analysed using Undo’s reverse-debugger either at the customer site or back at base.”

Undo’s record, rewind and replay technology is also used by application vendors who would rather diagnose and fix serious software defects before they cause havoc in production.

Undo’s vision is to apply its unique technology to address the emerging $1trillion software accountability problem – for example, when courts need to determine why a self-driving car hit a pedestrian or when a bank is asked by its regulator to explain a suspect series of trades, or when Congress wants to know what lay behind certain behaviour from a social networking website.

Law says: “The world is entering a new era where software is beginning to make decisions that underpin our lives, our livelihoods, and even western democracy itself; software accountability is fast becoming a very big problem, now recognised by software companies, the major economic players, and governments.”

Undo secured its first seed funding in 2012 when the company was based in Law’s garden shed. Today Undo’s products are used by many of the world’s biggest software companies including SAP, Micro Focus and Mentor Graphics, and its technology has received numerous awards, including the arm ‘Best Software Product’ and the Gartner ‘Cool Vendor’ awards.

Corporate innovation teams tend to have one of two backgrounds, writes Isabela Chick, head of business innovation at Telefonica. 

The first is well-established  R & D teams that have been rebranded as innovation teams. These usually excel at science but struggle to create standalone products that succeed in the market. The second is marketing-led innovation teams. They usually have an excellent track record of creating compelling propositions that excel in the market but they often struggle to make unique products with a clear technological differentiation.

Both teams create value in different ways but they usually share a desire to control the innovation process from start to finish. They often have somewhat rigid processes and structures, in part because they have to defend their value in the larger organisation. 

Frequently they keep innovation sealed off from the rest of business, a defensive posturing that creates black box innovation processes.

Other Approaches

A third approach, Open Innovation, has become popular in recent years and offers an alternative to the black box. With Open Innovation, a company will crowdsource solutions to key challenges, seeking solutions from anywhere from startups to the general public. 

The term ‘open innovation’ is a bit of a misnomer, though: the challenge is determined by a single person, the outcome controlled by them, and the value is usually owned by them, too. This has been quite popular recently, but I am not sure that it truly captures the benefits of different parties coming together. 

Open innovation largely replicates the usual function of an innovation team, but using a cast of non-employees to crack a challenge rather than an in-house team. 

There can be value in opening the challenge up; serendipity can arise and the Grand Challenges of the past and today’s X-Prize awards are testament to the scale of challenge that can be addressed in this way, but it is in innovation terms an incrementally different approach rather than a radically different approach.

There is a fourth model that is uncommon in corporate innovation but has thrived in academic institutions: collaboration. Collaborative innovation is the process of two or more organisations pooling their assets and capabilities to create new value for all parties. 

Many corporate innovators are protective of their work, but, having thought about this long and hard in a recent strategic project at work, I believe collaboration is the best innovation strategy for businesses to pursue in order to tackle the complex challenges and interrelated systems of the physical and digital world.

In collaborative innovation, a group of organisations come together to solve challenges that require a broad perspective of the value web, different types of expertise and multiple different technologies. 

So if you really wanted to shape the future of the retail industry, you might gather together a payment processor, a telecommunications provider, a logistics company and a major retailer. 

Multiple ways of creating value for each company would emerge that they would have struggled to deliver on their own. When projects are commercialised, a revenue share model could be used to reflect the contributions of each part of the collaboration, or the technology could be licensed to one member of the collaboration and licensed to the others. 

Any issues around ownership that might arise would be an example of a high quality problem for a great many innovation teams.

Through collaborative innovation, organisations can create vastly more impact than they could alone. Because it requires openness and clarity, it takes innovation out of the black box and out into the world. 

This is a terrifying prospect for many innovators – particularly the R & D old guard who shield their IP with their lives – but it is the best way to lift the success rates of corporate innovation teams and maximise their impact.

Many open-source projects (such as Linux and Bitcoin) have been developed with collaboration at their core, and scientific breakthroughs (The Human Genome project, or the work at CERN) are usually the product of collaboration among myriad teams, but in the corporate world, partnerships and collaborations are more often than not sales channel partnerships rather than true product partnerships, or in other cases a polite way to explain the licensing of another company’s technology.

Embracing collaboration

There are a number of practical, common-sense reasons for embracing a collaborative approach. It can help unearth new innovation potential. It helps organisations be more responsive to customer and market needs, and it allows organisations to identify adjacent growth opportunities and to gain a broad and deep understanding of technologies under development.

It has operational benefits too: accelerating the speed of innovation, allowing possible solutions to be tested and scaled among a broader base of potential customers, and above all, reducing the cost and risk associated with innovation.

If we broaden our focus beyond the needs of corporate innovation efforts, collaborative innovation can help us address the big social challenges that will define the business needs of the future. 

Solving these is the only way to really drive macro-economic growth — something we are all in desperate need of today.

• Isabela will be speaking at the upcoming Disruption Summit Europe on 4th September in London. As a Business Weekly reader, Shearline is pleased to offer you a 50 per cent discount on tickets. Use the promotional code: SHEARLINE50 when booking at https://disruption-summit.com/book-now/ 

To keep up to date with all the latest developments on disruptive technology, sign up for the free D/SRUPTION newsletter at  https://disruptionhub.com/newsletter/

Cambridgeshire bug buster Tristel is scaling its commercial push in the United States on multiple fronts.

The Snailwell, Newmarket business chose a UK trading update confirming record turnover and higher profits as the vehicle to share its American growth roadmap.

The manufacturer of infection prevention products said results for the year to June 30 were in line with expectations, with strong growth across the business.

Tristel will report record turnover of £22.2 million (2017: £20.3m) and pre-tax profit before share-based payments of at least £4.4m (£4.1m).  Revenue from overseas markets contributed 51.3 per cent of the group total – also a record level. 

The company has continued to generate significant levels of cash with balances of £6.7m at year end – up from £5.1m. The company has no debt.

The US end of the business is starting to excite brokers and shareholders alike. 

CEO Paul Swinney and his team are building on the EPA approval granted in April and the company is filing an additional submission to expand the allowable microbiological efficacy claims (20 additional micro-organisms) to enhance the competitive advantage of its Duo product.

It is also in the process of filing registrations in the first five selected States, and is adding a second foam-based product format to its registration. This product is branded Jet in the UK and overseas markets and utilises the same chemistry as Duo. Manufacturing scale up is underway at Parker Laboratories.

The company has lodged a pre-submission review with the FDA in accordance with the guidance given by the agency in the initial consultation meeting in April 2016. 

The data set presented to the FDA represents a substantial portion of the final submission that the company continues to expect to make by the end of the calendar year. 
 
The FDA will provide a written response to the pre-submission review 90 days from receipt. This response will be used by the company to guide its final submission.

The company continues to invest in future growth opportunities. These include gaining new regulatory approvals to access new geographical markets (in particular the United States) and to extend Tristel’s presence in its existing geographical markets.  

Tristel is also making strategic investments to position it in the emerging world of digital healthcare.  The board continues to examine all aspects of the business, including its distributor network, seeking further opportunities to enhance Tristel’s long term earnings.

• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: Tristel CFO Liz Dixon with CEO Paul Swinney

Cambridge ink jet innovator Xaar plc saw its UK share price leap almost seven per cent (16.4p) higher to 256.90p after unveiling a new 3D printing company formed jointly with American competitor Stratasys.

Cambridge Science Park-based Xaar and the Minnesota-anchored world leader in additive manufacturing have founded Xaar 3D Ltd.

The new company will develop 3D printing solutions based on High Speed Sintering technologies.

The alliance leverages the synergies between Xaar and Stratasys, specifically Xaar’s technology relating to High Speed Sintering and industrial piezo inkjet printheads, along with the commercial and market expertise of NASDAQ-quoted Stratasys.

Xaar will hold 85 per cent of Xaar 3D Ltd shares and Stratasys 15 per cent. Stratasys has also been granted an option to increase its ownership in Xaar 3D Ltd to a total of 30 per cent. 

Xaar 3D Ltd will hold all of Xaar’s High Speed Sintering assets. The new company’s board will be chaired by Xaar CEO, Doug Edwards (pictured above).

He said: “This joint investment in the development of 3D printing technologies reinforces the value created by our R & D and continues our plan to diversify Xaar’s business. 

“We are also pleased to be working alongside a leader in the 3D printing space which recognises the value of Xaar’s technology and expertise.”

Scott Crump, the American company’s chief innovation officer, added: “We are impressed with the Xaar team’s achievements to date. We believe that the complementary assets of Stratasys and Xaar will enable Xaar 3D Ltd to develop solutions that further address customers’ additive manufacturing requirements for a broader range of production applications.”

Microcomputer icon Raspberry Pi and thrusting young games company Automaton have signed up take space at the flagship Maurice Wilkes Building at St John’s Innovation Park, Cambridge.

They join cyber defence technology firm Darktrace, leading accountant and business adviser PwC and European-leading IP firm Mewburn Ellis in the flagship offices.

The mix of expertise across the companies now signed up for Wilkes almost constitutes its own mini-cluster within the UK’s bleeding edge science & technology heartland.

Raspberry Pi, inspired by Broadcom’s Eben Upton in Cambridge, is the best selling computer ever produced in the UK. Sales reached 19 million  in March of this year.

Automaton is led by former Jagex stars James Thompson and Mark Gerhard who also runs PlayFusion; Automaton and PlayFusion are currently co-tenanted at the Vitrum Building at St John’s Innovation Park.

The Wilkes Building was officially opened at the end of June in a celebration hosted by landlord St John’s College and developer Turnstone Estates. The speculatively developed building comprises 65,653 sq ft of Grade A office and R & D space. The scheme was fully committed prior to completion.

Rob Sadler, head of office at Savills Cambridge, said: “Providing high quality office space, the Maurice Wilkes Building is undoubtedly best in class when it comes to business accommodation in Cambridge. It is therefore unsurprising that we attracted extensive interest from prospective tenants prior to completion.”

The Raspberry Pi mini-computer is very Cambridge: It was created to inspire new generations of young engineering talent. Several generations of Raspberry Pi’s have been released. All models feature a Broadcom system on a chip with an integrated Arm compatible central processing unit and on-chip graphics processing unit. Prices range from $5 to $35.

The first generation was released in February 2012 and has been refined with incredible success ever since to become even more portable and powerful.

The organisation behind the Raspberry Pi consists of two arms. The first two models were developed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation. 

After the Pi Model B was released, the Foundation set up Raspberry Pi Trading, with Eben Upton as CEO, to develop the third model, the B+. 

Raspberry Pi Trading is responsible for developing the technology while the Foundation is an educational charity to promote the teaching of basic computer science in schools and in developing countries.

Automaton is the latest exciting iteration of a stable of world-leading Cambridge games developers. Founded in 2015, it is a young, dynamic and fast-paced team led by breakaway veteran talent from historic MMOs and AAA titles on numerous platforms. 

Since incorporation it has pioneered a revolutionary approach to MMO design and development. As an innovation-focused studio, it also works on a few smaller projects to experiment with new technologies. Its primary focus is pushing the boundaries of massively multiplayer online experiences. 

James Thompson has been a successful entrepreneur and computer scientist from a young age, making his first million dollars aged 17 with his AI software for players of the MMORPG RuneScape. 

Before starting Automaton, he worked closely with the executive team at Jagex from 2011-2015 as principal engineer on multiple projects, and simultaneously graduated with a 1st in computer science from the University of Cambridge.

Mark Gerhard is an industry veteran who brings a wealth of executive experience to the team as chairman. He is founder and CEO of AI, robotics and games company PlayFusion, which is pioneering mixed-reality entertainment; vice-chairman of multi-award winning non-profit trade association TIGA, which represents the UK’s games industry; and former CEO and CTO of Jagex, which he led to become the UK’s largest independent games studio until 2015.

In 2017 Automaton raised $10 million with Cambridge Venture Partners leading the investment.

Its first MMO is due for release this year – ‘Mavericks Proving Grounds’ – supports 1000 concurrent players in an ultra-high fidelity world. It is set in a huge, photoreal and highly dynamic environment, with strong character progression, social hubs, intelligent mission systems and global-scale player-driven narrative. Automaton partnered with Improbable to bring SpatialOS technology to the new game.

Cambridge University nanotech researchers are collaborating with a US insurer and other corporate players to explore the commercial potential of an intelligent loo which captures massive levels of key data in users’ urine that could be used to deliver timely and effective personalised medicines.

Early feedback suggests the invention installed in peoples’ homes could save patients and health authorities worldwide millions of pounds while ensuring the right drugs are given to individual patients at the right time – putting an end to the current hit and hope scenario.

The intelligent loo has been created by the NanoPhotonics Centre at Cavendish Laboratory and is being exhibited this week at the Royal Society Summer Exhibition. 

Sensors installed in the toilet act as biomarkers which collect data that can be fed instantly back to an iPhone or laptop to a patient or their GP. The data can be collected far more frequently and in much greater mass than through spasmodic blood or urine samples taken by by GP surgeries in the UK or healthcare practitioners worldwide.

The technique can also measure the entire range of chemicals impacting on the body, how they may interact and – by dint of that – identify a pathway that hits an accurate target rather than a random one.

Some urine samples taken by GPs, for example, will measure glucose or insulin levels but not examine what other chemicals may be interacting with those or how they are impacting on individuals to explain why they have a certain condition. And without accurate data, specific treatments can rarely be administered.

With the Cambridge technology, a flow of lights depicts urine’s path through to the assembly of gold nanoparticles, which trap target molecules of interest. 

The Illumination of gold nanoparticles shows the capture of the vibrational (Raman) signals used to identify the concentrations of neurotransmitters like dopamine or other molecules. 

Professor Jeremy Baumberg, director of the NanoPhotonics Centre, said: “We have very little idea how well our body is doing on the inside – and particularly whether our brain is out of whack or our hormones unsettled.

“Personalised medicine offers the vision to track our health, but is currently limited to simple things like heart rate. What we really need is access to some of the important molecules circulating inside us, but so far this is too expensive to do in the home.

“Our intelligent toilet exhibit showcases a new way we can access this by checking crucial molecules of interest that flow out in our urine. Since these are only molecules only exist in tiny quantities, they first have to be sifted out and then ‘rattled’ with a laser.
 
“One current application for the system is towards better treatment of patients who suffer from depression, as no method exists to accurately determine the dosage of medication required. However, this could also be extended to other conditions such as problems in pregnancy and other disorders and, possibly, drug testing.”

The Cambridge research team working on the project now numbers around 35 and with what Prof Baumberg estimates to be an unrivalled capacity of around 1,000 researchers at Cambridge working on nanotechnology projects, there is a great opportunity for collaboration to refine the technology as the research progresses.

Prof Baumberg believes the whole world will benefit but says the US market where the cost of healthcare to private individuals is potentially enormous – often prohibitive – could be a major beneficiary of the technology.

Dr Giuliana Di Martino, group leader, Winton Advanced Research Fellow and Jesus College Postdoctoral Associate at the NanoPhotonics Centre, believes it could take several years to perfect the technology to a point where it can be confidently installed in homes around the world. But she believes the potential is unprecedented.

Dr Di Martino told Business Weekly: “There are several different elements involved in the collection of data through the sensors but they are all pieces of the same puzzle. And they are all designed to detect healthcare threats that could not previously be detected.

“One of the first things we had to study was peoples’ habits so we could deduce the most effective way to deploy our sensors. Everyone goes to the toilet once a day at least so an intelligent toilet that utilised these novel biomarkers presented itself as the most obvious approach to gathering the data effectively.

“We are unlocking new solutions to effective treatment of diseases and conditions with this technology. If you correctly identify the root of a health problem you can deliver the right treatment at the optimum time, which not only saves cost but also improves prospects for earlier diagnosis of conditions. Earlier diagnosis clearly improves the chances of accelerating a cure.”

Dr Di Martino compared the data collection device to a speedometer in a car. Just as consistent measurement of speed data can help drivers avoid breaking limits and so peg the cost of car insurance, so more accurate measurement of health issues can save costs to health authorities and individual patients who have to pay for prescriptions.

• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: Dr Giuliana Di Martino