The Engineer Technology and Innovation Awards 2009

The event, sponsored by BAE Systems and hosted by Scrapheap Challenge and Red Dwarf star, Robert Llewellyn, saw winners in seven categories receive awards for ground-breaking technologies as a result of collaboration between universities and industry.

The top prize of the event, the Engineer Special Award, was presented to the Gray Institute for Radiation Oncology and Biology, Cancer Research Technology and The Technology Partnership for their work on medical imaging.

The research consortium, which also won the award in the Medical and Healthcare category, has developed a system called CyMap that can examine organisms as they divide, grow and die to further research into future cancer therapies. Using no lenses or other optical components, CyMap is a low-cost but robust device, which also has promise in applications such as testing drinking water quality in developing countries, in the development of stem cell therapies, and in disease diagnosis.

The ALADDIN project, run by Southampton University, Oxford University, Imperial College, BAE Systems and Bristol University, received this year’s Aerospace and Defence Award for the development of response systems to improve the way emergency services work together during major disasters. Meanwhile, technology firm Magna Parva and Leicester University received a special commendation for their work on the life marker chip for Europe’s ExoMars mission.