A SCOTTISH university spinout company has won a prestigious national award more than 40 years after the firm was set up.

Strathclyde University’s Horiba Jobin Yvon IBH has received a Business Innovation Award from the Institute of Physics (IoP) for the Flimera, a molecular movie camera with applications in medical research, disease diagnostics, screening, optically-guided surgery and tissue monitoring.

The camera is considerably faster than conventional scanning microscopes, enabling real-time video-rate recordings for the study of mobile samples, such as live cells and fluid biopsy for cancer screening.

The device detects the location and dynamics of molecules using their emissions of fluorescence. Judges of the IoP award described it as “a game-changing technology”.

Each camera pixel simultaneously measures molecule timing and intensity. Bespoke software enables real-time video rate studies of the fundamental cellular processes critical to biology and healthcare.

The company was initially founded in 1977 as Strathclyde spinout IBH. It was acquired in 2003 by precision instruments manufacturer Horiba and now leads the market in fluorescence spectroscopy.

The technology has been developed in collaboration with Edinburgh University.

Professor David Birch of Strathclyde’s physics department, co-founder of IBH and director of science and technology with Horiba, joined the team for the award at a ceremony at the Palace of Westminster. He said: “To date, the use of fluorescence lifetimes in spectroscopy and microscopy has been predominantly based on using a single detector and point-by-point measurements.

“Back in the 1990s, we established the principle of multiplexing lifetime measurements using up to 16 multiple detection channels in order to overcome these limitations and access more of a molecule’s fluorescence fingerprint.

“But I could never have imagined back then the nearly 25,000 simultaneous fluorescence lifetime measurements obtained with the Flimera.

“Our products are very application driven and the Flimera will undoubtedly open-up new global markets for the company across biology, healthcare and materials.”

Institute of Physics President Jonathan Flint said: “The IoP Business Awards recognise large and small companies that have built success on the creative application of physics. There are very few awards that do this.

“The application of physics has the potential to produce cutting-edge technologies, and to drive business innovation and growth. It also fuels significant positive societal and economic transformation, both locally and globally.

“Now, more than ever, we need continued investment to ensure a healthy supply of physicists in the UK and Ireland.

“These awards remind us of that, and of what can be achieved when our talent is encouraged, developed and rewarded.”