12.9% of women are estimated to experience breast cancer, at some point in the lifetime. The great news is there is a 99% survival rate, if caught whilst still localised in the breast. Unfortunately survival drops to 37% once that cancer has been able to spread to lymph nodes and beyond. Ultimately around 10% of women, who get breast cancer, will die as a result of late detection. Micrima has been at the forefront of breast cancer diagnostics for some 20 years, developing wholly novel radio wave technology. for the first 17 years the company focused on breast imaging but a change of management team brought a change of direction. Their experience of the breast diagnostics market led them to look at how the technology could most impact the patient pathway. The main issue with current detection is its reliance on X-Ray Mammography. It's use of ionising radiation means it can only be used infrequently (giving cancer time to spread between scans) and its poor detection rates in "dense" breasts limits detection. This impacts detection in ~50% of women who are currently screened and prevents screening of younger women who have a much high proportion of dense breasts. Significant investment is being made to develop new mammography techniques and wholly novel technologies to address dense breast sensitivity. However, they all require an initial Mammogram to identify dense breasts, before they are used. The Mi~Scan device can quickly, safely and efficiently measure breast density before an imaging technique is selected, meaning women can have the best test to identify cancer, in their specific tissue type first time. Furthermore, with enough data collected the Mi~Scan data should identify the signs of cancer from it's quick 1 minute scan, that can be performed on all women, quickly, safely, in any location and pain free broadening the scope of screening to all women and only referring in women who are high risk or identified as having cancer.

Over the nine months of the project, we firstly intend to contact established companies within the field of water-testing (such as Hach, Palintest, Siemens) to introduce them to our technology and more importantly to ascertain their needs in terms of test requirements. Here we aim to gain an understanding of the tests currently employed by these major companies, with an emphasis being placed towards the more important analytes to be measured (for example total THM measurement, or individual species), the number of tests being taken, and also the accuracy at which the readings need to recorded. Once we have obtained this initial market research, we will then aim to use these preliminary meetings to provide further introductions to possible end-users of the technology. Here we aim to undertake a review of current measurement protocols so we can gain an in depth understanding of present techniques in terms of their limitations and un-met needs. We will then use these findings as a starting point on which to further expand our development protocols. As our final aim is to possibly provide a device which is capable of measurement of a number of different analytes (such as CHCl3, CHBrCl2, CHBr2Cl and CHBr3), we feel it is important to gain an in-depth knowledge of what is required at the user interface. Input from end-users is vital for us to develop a device which is commercially viable. We already have identified THMs as a possible target analyte; however we also seek information regarding specific THM species for us to develop defined measurement protocols. Differing disinfection protocols will lead to the formation of increased levels of particular THM species (such as increased CHBr3 levels when bromination is employed). Once we have taken advice from end users, we can then implement an investigation into time-scales and costings for the development of sensing devices for each of the required analytes. We already have in place a rudimentary ‘proof-of-concept’ development of the methodology required for the determination of one THM species, chloroform. For the determination of chloroform a simple electrochemical technique is employed, upon carbon screen-printed surface that have been modified to microelectrode arrays via our novel fabrication procedures. The measurement protocol is based on the oxidation of the chloroform species on a reverse anodic sweep, where an oxidation peak current is detected and can be related back to the concentration under investigation. To date we have measured down to levels of 1ppm, but we know we need to obtain lower limits of detection in the order of ~80ppm and we require further guidance as to the lower limits of detection required for specific THMs; we intend to obtain this information and further guidance from meetings with potential end users and contacts at each of the highlighted companies. We would also need to investigate our freedom to seek patent protection for our approach process. We would also begin to establish whether specific components of any possible product, could be protected to gain maximum protection. This exercise will also help us identify any competing patents or other obstacles to allow commercialisation. Patents within the infringement period that are not in force, but which may clear a ‘right-to-use’ by virtue of being in the public domain, will also be searched for. When this type of search is followed up with a validity search against any highly relevant patents identified, this is sometimes referred as a 'clearance search'.