NOVEMBER 2003 BROADSHEET - Sound Science
Our second meeting of the season, on 30th October, demonstrated once again one of the CETC’s strengths: bringing in high quality, expert speakers to talk about topics most of us would never otherwise get to hear about. Under the title of “Sound Science”, we heard of two very different acoustic technologies.
John Pritchard, CEO of local company Akubio Limited, gave a fascinating insight into the use of acoustic detection in the area of diagnostics and biosensors. Using cheap, mass-produced quartz crystal resonators (components, for example, of watches and mobile phones), they are developing proprietary technology to provide what they believe is the first major breakthrough in diagnostics since PCR was developed. The key is their ability to “hear” the sound made when the bond between a molecule, virus particle, or cell and an antibody is broken by sound energy in the 4MHz to 1GHz range (below conventional ultrasound frequencies). This ability is applied via two techniques: REVS (Rupture Event Scanning) can be used to detect tiny levels of target species (even single virus particles!) by breaking their bond with an antibody coated on the resonator; RAP (Resonant Acoustic Profiling) on the other hand is applied to the detection of the binding and dissociation of a range of ligands in a flow cell. Major application areas foreseen are rapid, sensitive and portable diagnostic devices and highly efficient drug screening. In both cases, these acoustic techniques combine the sensitivity of PCR with high specificity and very easy sample preparation. Started in 2001, Akubio is currently seeking next phase funding.
Although sharing a technology base in acoustics, the business of another, more established, company in the Cambridge area – Cedar Audio Limited – could hardly be more different. Managing Director Gordon Reid instead gave us an introduction to how sophisticated algorithms can be used to allow real-time processing of complex audio recordings. No REVS or RAP here: instead we learned about how techniques such as de-clicking, de-buzzing, Dialogue Noise Suppression and Cross-Channel Adaptive Filtering (nothing to do with ferries!) can be used in the related fields of audio restoration and noise suppression. Not only are these techniques powerful in themselves, but all of these - and a range of others - can be run simultaneously in real time on eight channels, thanks to the computing power now available. Applications include the restoration of old recordings from sound archives and cleaning up of film and television soundtracks to avoid highly expensive re-dubbing (for example, removing traffic noise from period dramas). Less public is the use by police forces of forensic filtering: allowing very quiet or distorted dialogue to be extracted from recordings made in noisy environments.
Overall, this was another very interesting meeting, well attended and finishing with the normal lively question and answer session.
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