FOCUS RESEARCH NEWS
€30m Irish photonics centre opens A
€30 million Irish Photonic Integration Centre (IPIC) has been launched to develop and commercialise new light- enabled technologies. The centre in Cork is led by Tyndall National Institute in collaboration with University College Cork (UCC), Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) and Dublin City University (DCU). The Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Research Centre brings together more than 100 researchers and will work with 18 industry partners including multinationals, Irish SMEs and high-tech start-ups. Targeting the ICT and medical devices
sectors, IPIC will work with industry to develop the next generation of highly-compact and miniaturised photonics technologies. Over the next six years, the centre has ambitious plans to create 200 new jobs through 30 research projects and the commercialisation of new photonic technologies. The centre’s work will focus on
revolutionising the speed of data transfer, creating more energy efficient devices and delivering new smart medical devices for improved diagnosis and treatment of disease. An investment of €20 million will be
awarded to the centre from the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation through
Sean Sherlock, Ireland’s minister for research and innovation, and representatives from institutes at the IPIC launch
SFI’s Research Centres Programme, with an additional €10 million generated from industry. It will also act as a high-tech start-up base,
with new high-tech company, X-Celeprint already committed to base its headquarters in Tyndall and to create up to 20 jobs in the next two years.
Outlining the vision for IPIC, Paul Townsend, IPIC director, said: ‘The launch of IPIC
represents an exciting new chapter in photonic research in Ireland, which aims to achieve both measurable economic impact and global scientific recognition for Ireland in this sector. ‘The centre brings together a full research value chain with expertise that spans from semiconductor and bio-materials, through integrated photonic and microelectronic circuits, to fully-packaged photonic systems.’
Optical neuro-monitor to lower brain damage in premature babies
Nine European partners have begun a project that aims to reduce the risk of brain damage in babies born prematurely. The goal of the BabyLux project is to develop an optical neuro-monitor that monitors the oxygenation of the baby’s brain with a high level of accuracy. The project partners aim to reduce the risk of brain damage in extremely preterm babies from 25 per cent to 20 per cent. This would decrease the number of children with disabilities by more than 1,000 per year in Europe alone. The project involves researchers, clinicians, and SMEs from Italy, Spain, Germany, and Denmark. The German company, PicoQuant, a provider of instrumentation for single photon counting applications,
12 ELECTRO OPTICS l MARCH 2014
will provide core opto-electronic components necessary to develop and build the instrument. The optical neuro-monitor measures optical signals using near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Neonatologists can measure blood flow to the brain with the device, as well as the blood’s oxygenation non-invasively. It is portable and can be brought to the bedside, and measurements can be carried out in a few minutes or repeatedly if the condition is critical.
According to the Global Action
Report published by The World Health Organisation in 2012, 15 million preterm births occur every year. About 1.1 million babies die from preterm birth complications. The extremely preterm infants,
born at less than 28 weeks of gestation, represent 0.5 per cent of all births – which, when translated into numbers, is equivalent to more than 25,000 cases per year in Europe. These children have a higher risk of death, approximately 20 per cent. They usually remain in intensive care for several weeks and then in the hospital for two to three months before going home. Furthermore, one in four grows up with some kind of disability, mainly due to brain injury. The BabyLux project aims to reduce this problem. ‘We are very proud to present a European project of this magnitude,’ said the project coordinator, Alessandro Torricelli, associate professor in the department of physics at Politecnico
di Milano. ‘Our goal is to fill a void in the neonatal intensive care, where there aren’t any reliable tools to assess the brain blood flow and oxygenation in infants born prematurely.’
‘PicoQuant is very happy to join a project dedicated to baby health. We will provide our class leading opto- electronic components and support the development of a complete and user-friendly device for the medical market,’ said Rainer Erdmann, managing director at PicoQuant. The project, partially funded by the European Commission, began in January 2014 and will last three years. A six-month trial period will follow at the Mangiagalli Hospital in Milan, Italy and at the Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, Denmark.
@electrooptics |
www.electrooptics.com
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