Health Technology

The war on disease is one fought on many fronts and enabling technologies are providing the frontline soldiers with game changing weapons.  A number of Enabling Technologies including medical instruments and devices, bioinformatics and bioimaging have all been crucial in the advancement of clinical and veterinary care and will continue to be so.

Edinburgh’s research organisations have not limited their involvement in the health of mankind and other animals to the presence of world-class teaching hospitals, medical schools and veterinary institutes -  they also bring their expertise in the fields of informatics, physics, chemistry, engineering and more to investigate and develop a wide variety of Health Enabling Technologies. 

The COSMIC facility at The University of Edinburgh provides state-of-the-art bioimaging and spectroscopic instruments for all manner of biological uses whilst the Informatics department pushes forward the concept of bioinformatics through its Informatics Life Sciences Institute. 

The Centre for Biomedical Engineering at The University of Edinburgh is part of a European wide group of researchers that were awarded £3.7 million in 2010 to investigate Positron Emission Tomography as part of the SPADNET project.  Heriot-Watt Universities Biomedical Textiles Research Centre performs research into a range of textiles for biomedical use from surgical tape to artificial ligaments.

Health technology research is useless without a robust industry to disseminate its successes.  Edinburgh Science Triangle is home to a wide range of biotechnology companies including Helica Instruments Ltd who produce gynaecological surgical instruments and DySIS Medical Ltd, a company that manufactures and designs medical devices for non-invasive detection of cancerous lesions.