Recent Innovations
The inspiring tradition of innovation continues to thrive, and
Edinburgh boasts many centres of excellence which attract the
keenest and most creative minds to live and work in the region.
The science and technology sector is booming in Edinburgh and
the Lothians and is at the cutting edge of advancements in crucial
research across many disciplines.
Touch Bionics
West Lothian company, Touch Bionics, is the
world leader in creating prosthetic hands and fingers to replace
those lost through trauma, disease or birth defects. It has already
made a huge difference to amputees who have been able to continue
their working lives.
Touch's bionic hands have individually powered
digits. When a person loses a hand, the brain still imagines there
is a ‘phantom hand’ and the technology can pick up the signals sent
to it.
Further information on Touch Bionics
Ingenza
Industrial biotechnology company Ingenza, located at Roslin
BioCentre, is making massive strides in developing alternative
fuels.
Biofuels are already used as part of a petrol,
but soon most cars will be running on alternative fuels. Instead of
using oil to make plastics, they could be grown in laboratories,
and used for everything from plastic bags to carpets.
The Scottish coast could be an ideal location
for algae-farms, growing an alternative to diesel.
Further information on Ingenza
Pelamis Wave Power
The Leith based company produced a global
breakthrough in 2004 - the Pelamis Wave Energy Converter, the
world’s first commercial-scale wave energy machine to supply
electricity to the National Grid.
This has since led to the recent development
of the 'next generation' Pelamis P2, built for German energy giant
E.ON and capable of generating a massive 750kW. It was
recently launched in Edinburgh before being transported to
Orkney for testing.
Further information on Pelamis
Wolfson Microelectronics
This company originated in 1985 as a spin-out
from The University of Edinburgh, building a reputation as a leader
in the design of integrated circuits. With the introduction
of semi conductors, Wolfson have now moved to providing chips for
electronic products such as games consoles, mobile phones, digital
cameras, MP3 players.
Further information on Wolfson Microelectronics
Dolly the sheep
Professor Ian Wilmut is an
embryologist and currently one of the leaders of the Queen's
Medical Research Institute at The University of Edinburgh. He is
best known as the leader of the research group that in 1996 first
cloned a mammal from an adult somatic cell, a lamb named Dolly,
which grew into a normal adult.
New techniques have since been progressed with
stem cell research considered to offer greater potential for the
treatment of degenerative conditions such as Parkinson's disease
and to treat stroke and heart attack patients.
Further information on Queen's Medical Research Institute
Hepatitis B vaccine
In the early 1980’s Professor Ken Murray, working in the
Department of Molecular Biology at The University of Edinburgh –
the first department of its kind in the UK – discovered a means of
expressing Hepatitis B proteins then went on to develop a vaccine
to combat the Hepatitis B virus, one of the world’s most
wide-spread chronic diseases. Professor Murray was also one
of the first to work on DNA sequencing.
Further information on School
of Biological Sciences
The University of Edinburgh School of Informatics
The School of Informatics is an internationally leading centre,
possessing a combination of research unparalleled elsewhere in the
UK and competitive worldwide.
It provides a fertile environment for a wide range of studies
focused on understanding computation in both artificial and natural
systems. The research draws on concepts from computer
science, artificial intelligence, linguistics, cognitive science,
neuroscience, psychology and biology.
Scientists are working on speckled computing, where “Specks” can
be formed into networks that can be programmed to retrieve data,
with one application of the technology could be in diagnosing
medical conditions.
Further information on School of
Informatics
