A NEWLY launched innovative Tayside business partnership could result in a quantum leap being taken in open and keyhole surgery.

Business incubator Soft Center Perth and Dundee University have pooled scientific and commercial expertise to promote groundbreaking technology that could revolutionise surgical procedures.

New company Lumenus Ltd has been created to exploit commercial research and development emanating from the laboratory of Professor Jim Hewit at the university.

Experts from both camps at Lumenus will now work to advance the invention and roll it out on a commercial basis.

Professor Hewit explained the value of the innovative surgical device and the vital role played in its development by Soft Center Perth.

“A team of four inventors has created a surgical instrument which can provide vital assistance to a surgeon operating in the restricted sensory constraints of keyhole procedures,” he said.

“By illuminating organ tissue we can substitute the normal touch guidance of open surgery for the surgeon by visual guidance in keyhole procedures, thereby providing maximum information in restricted access operations.

“The prototype system is currently being designed and built in Dunfermline and should be ready to go on trial at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee later this year,” he continued.