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Assaying Euro Coins - and Detecting Heart Disease, Too
The European Patent Office has granted a patent for a Tallinn University of Technology method and invention for measuring bioimpedance.
The method and invention with a wide number of uses is already patented in the US and Estonia.
Developed by professor Mart Min, senior researchers Raul Land and Toomas Parve and medical school graduate Andres Kink, the method is convenient for analyzing various materials and structures - biological and chemical ones in particular - by using numerical signal processing.
The patent will be implemented for the 1.79-million-euro, two-year Safemetal project under the EU's Seventh Framework Programme that will provide a way to develop a set of instruments for rapidly assaying the metals used to make euro coins.
Educational institutions and companies from the UK, Slovakia, Greece and Cyprus are involved in the project.
The method can also be used to develop medical devices that are based on bio-MEMS (bio-micro-electromechanical) systems, such as pacemakers and tools for detecting early signs of heart disease and monitoring transplanted organ function