Business News The Griffin Report
Seventeen years ago, a University of Birmingham scientist had a “lightbulb” moment in a San Diego hotel room when he saw a news item on a tragedy in a New York hospital which claimed the life of a six-year-old boy. Mark Keene knew how to prevent the accident happening again. Jon Griffin, Chamberlink’s award-winning columnist, went to meet Dr Keene.
at the University of Birmingham – 17 years after an extraordinary “lightbulb moment” changed his life forever. Dr Keene is the new visiting
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professor with the university’s School of Electronic, Electrical and Systems Engineering helping identify future engineering talent, primarily due to a 2001 tragedy in a New York hospital which claimed the life of a six-year-old boy. Mark, 55, attributes his new
appointment to a TV broadcast in 2001 he watched by chance in a hotel room in San Diego, where he was working for the Defence Research Agency in a previous career role. “I was in a hotel room in San
Diego, put the TV on and there was a news item about a six-year-old boy who had died. He was having a routine MRI scan in New York and the nurse brought a steel oxygen cylinder in. “The boy, Michael Colombini, had
got into trouble during the scan and needed oxygen, but the nurse brought in the wrong kind of cylinder – you have got to have an aluminium cylinder because they do not get attracted to a magnet.” As a result of the cylinder
mistake, the steel device shot across the room like a missile and attached itself to the MRI scanner where Michael was lying undergoing treatment for a brain tumour following a playground accident. “It killed Michael Colombini – his
brain haemorrhaged and he died a day later. I saw this on the news and that night, I had a lightbulb moment – I thought I know how to prevent that happening again.” The end result of the terrible
tragedy which cost six-year-old Michael Colombini’s life was Mark’s invention of a ‘core ferromagnetic detection system technology’ – in layman’s terms a novel, portable metal detector – which is now helping to promote safety worldwide in a variety of fields. Mark’s lightbulb moment in San
Diego was to ultimately lead to the foundation of Malvern-based Metrasens in 2005, which has subsequently grown into the world’s
20 CHAMBERLINK November 2018 Dr Mark Keene, co-founder of Metrasens Continued on page 70...
cientist Mark Keene is helping to produce the UK’s next generation of engineers
leading provider of advanced magnetic detection technology, boasting a 75-strong workforce with a current turnover of between £10m and £11m. The Worcestershire company has
mushroomed to export worldwide – including 75 per cent to the USA – but its origins date back to a spare room in the home of fellow co-founder Simon Goodyear, who along with Matthew Williscroft formed the trio which gave birth to a hi-tech innovating enterprise which won a Queen’s Award for Innovation earlier this year. “The invention has sold all over the
world, but it would not have been invented if I had not been in my hotel room in America – it completely changed my life and completely changed the lives of everybody who now works for Metrasens.”
M
etrasens’ unique security/sceening solution is now being implemented in
a range of establishments, from NHS facilities to prisons and potentially football stadiums, with Aston Villa earmarked for a first UK trial.
“We are using science to create
technology to make the world a safer place.” The device has also been used at movie premiers in Los Angeles and at other large-scale events to protect against mass shootings. “We are looking to prevent mass casualties, detecting machine guns, suicide vests etc. Our main market is prisons, detecting mobile phones, knives etc. “The company has been growing
at 30 per cent per annum over the past four years. We are very ambitious and have more ideas than we currently have the resources to follow up on.” In tandem with his ongoing work
as Chief Technology Officer with Metrasens, Mark is now looking forward to his new role at the University of Birmingham after the Royal Academy of Engineering awarded a Professorship as an appreciation of his contribution to magnetic sensing and detection. “We will be a Third World
country if we do not produce the
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