Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

Owlstone's tiny chemical sensor on a silicon chip provides a miniature detection system for trace amounts of a wide variety of chemicals from airport explosives to precombustion fumes.

A robotic retrieval system for the UK Biobank working at -80°C with 10 million samples, a catalytic converter set to clean up diesel car emissions and a penny-sized sensor that can de tect the tiniest hints of diseases and explosives will compete with the world's first commercially available bionic hand for the 2008 Royal Academy of Engineering MacRobert Award.

Developed, respectively, by The Automation Partnership (TAP), Johnson Matthey - both of Royston - and Cambridge's Owlstone, the technologies will face off against Touch Bionics in Scot land for the £50,000 prize and the solid gold MacRobert award medal to be awarded in June.

TAP's Polar is a new robotic system designed specifically for the UK Biobank, the world's leading programme to create a largescale resource for medical research.

It must keep 10 million human blood and urine samples at a steady -80°C for 25 years but at the same time ensure any sample is instantly accessible at any time.

Johnson Matthey's compact catalysed soot filter is for diesel cars. The team has developed special catalysts and an innovative precision manufacturing process that combines catalyst and filter into a single unit that is small enough to fit into the restricted space in the engine com partment of a car.

Owlstone's tiny chemical sensor on a silicon chip provides a miniature detection system for trace amounts of a wide variety of chemicals from airport explosives to precombustion fumes.

Potentially it can also be used as a 'health breathalyser' to diagnose illness by analysing chemicals on a patient's breath.

Touch Bionics' revolutionary i-LIMB Hand is a prosthetic device that looks and acts like a real human hand with five individually powered digits, heralding a new generation in bionics and patient care.

The key innovation behind Touch Bionics' i-LIMB Hand is the multi-articulating finger technology, which has underpinned the product's resounding commercial success since its launch.