Projects

CMCRF funds projects in Scottish universities which involve applications of the electromagnetic spectrum and their impact on early diagnosis and improved recovery rates.

Since the year 2003, CMCRF has funded a number of promising projects in Edinburgh and Dundee Universities, which in different ways contributed to the Fund’s objectives.

The principal current projects enabled by CMCRF are based in Aberdeen Glasgow and St Andrews Universities.

Aberdeen University: low field MRI for early cancer detection

Aberdeen

Prof Sharp with low field MRI Scanner

This CMCRF funded project involves the development of a low cost/low field compact MRI. Whole body scanners are expensive to buy, house and maintain. The result: too few scanners, high demand and long waiting lists. The aim: to develop a low-cost, widely available machine, capable of imaging particular parts of the body, e.g. head or breast.

Glasgow University: suspected damage to DNA

Glasgow

Microsatellite DNA sequences are particularly prone to radiation induced mutation from magnetic fields. The risk of damage from exposure to high frequency radiation such as X-rays and gamma rays is well known, but the risks from low frequency radiation such as is found in electricity power distribution have so far been anecdotal. Now, with equipment of greatly increased sensitivity funded by CMCRF, researchers are detecting damage to DNA from prolonged exposure to low frequency fields.

St Andrews University, Bute Medical School

St Andrews University

The Bute Medical School, working with the School of Physics and Astronomy at St Andrews University, has developed means for identifying tumours at an early stage by enhancing the hitherto weak and masked signals given by Raman Spectroscopy.

An optical tuneable pulsed laser, funded by the Clerk Maxwell Cancer Research Fund (CMCRF), is essential to the development of a novel technique to reduce background signal and provide early identification of lung and particularly cervical cancer by  discriminating between normal and abnormal epithelium.

This development project has now gained continuing support from Cancer Research UK (CRUK), the Engineering and Physics Science Research Council (EPSRC) and the Chief Scientists Office.