Two new technologies – an advanced new system for the treatment of lung cancer and a Nanoelectronics invention to enable the further miniaturisation of microchips – have jointly won the UCC Invention of the Year Award.
Presented by UCC president Dr. Michael Murphy, the Award recognises the research undertaken at UCC which has developed a strong track record in commercialising projects in disciplines ranging from life sciences and pharmacology to ICT and engineering.
Declan Soden and John Hinchion, principal investigators at the Cork Cancer Research Centre, have invented a laparoscopic device for the non-invasive treatment of lung cancer.
The Lung Laparoscopic Electroporation Electrode (LLEE) device is a system that delivers, in a targeted manner, an electrical field to tumour tissue. An electrical field is generated around the tumour which opens microscopic pores within the cancerous cells, a process known as electroporation.
With these microscopic pores opened, a cytotoxic cell-killing drug is delivered directly into the cancerous cells. The drug absorbtion occurs only in the area that has been electroporated (i.e., when the cell pores are opened using electrodes) and the treatment is directly targeted into the cancerous cells in the tumour, leaving surrounding healthy tissues unaffected.
The UCC medical device will now undergo clinical trials to prove its effectiveness.
Electrochemotherapy is already an acknowledged treatment method in skin cancer and Declan Soden is also an inventor of the EndoVE, a device currently in clinical trial to treat colorectal cancer, but a similar lung treatment has not been developed until now. The system underlying the new device is currently being patented by UCC’s Technology Transfer Office.
The other winning project from Dr Scott Monaghan and Dr Ian Povey of the Tyndall National Research Institute (UCC) looked at the future role of nanoelectrics in the development of small microchips.
Monaghan and Povey’s work found a method of increasing charge storage density (the quantity of electric charges or currents that can be accommodated on the chip) on a circuit. It also minimises the leakage of these charges within key components of micro and nanoelectronics circuitry. This will enable the circuitry within a microchip to become even smaller. It will also allow for further combinations of analog and digital systems on the same chip.
Other inventions shortlisted in the competition included a new system to maximise broadband data transmission in fibre optic cables; a controlled drug delivery system for illnesses including Crohns disease and stomach cancer; and the use of nanotechnology in the development of new drugs.
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