A lens-free microscope developed by Cancer Research UK scientists and members of the Optical Biochips Consortium has won first prize in the Medical and Healthcare category at 'The Engineer' awards.
The microscope, dubbed Cymap, also won the overall Grand Prix prize at the event, which focused on and celebrated technology and innovation.
The technology could be developed into a compact cell-imaging system for use in research laboratories.
It also has the potential for use in medical diagnostics systems to quantify and analyse medical samples in hospitals, doctors' surgeries and clinical laboratories.
Instead of using optical lenses, the Cymap technology employs light to illuminate 'objects' such as cells or pathogens in a sample, which create light diffraction and interference patterns that can be recorded by an optical detector.
This enables scientists to count the number of cells in a sample, and also to monitor changes over time, such as location, movement and division.
Because the system contains no physical lenses, there is no requirement for focusing or other critical adjustments.
The Cymap technology is available to be licensed through Cancer Research Technology (CRT), which is also working with the Technology Partnership to identify partners to develop it further.
