Associate Professor Wei Shen and Professor Gil Garnier from Monash University and their team of research students – Miaosi Li, Xu Li, Lizi Li, David Ballerini and Junfai Tian have received this years ANSTO Eureka Prize for Innovative Use of Technology.

The Monash team were one of the many finalists in the running to win the ANSTO Eureka Prize for Innovative Use of Technology at the annual Australian Museum Eureka Prizes, which was held in Sydney on 28 August, 2012. This prestigious and high profile event has been dubbed the ‘Oscars of Australian Science’.

The ANTSO Eureka prize is given to an individual, organisation or group for creating new or using existing technology in an innovative way that has greatly improved the outcome of their research.

The teams’ entry, a Bioactive Paper Diagnostics tool that rapidly recognises and spells out a person’s blood type in written text, clearly impressed, allowing the team to bring home the $10,000 prize.

This Bioactive Paper Diagnostics tool is the first of its kind, is equipment free and takes less than a minute.

“Conventional colour calibration tests require time and expert interpretation but, with the aid of some Harry Potter inspiration, re-engineering of an ink-jet printer and an adaptation of existing blood-typing practices, Associate Professor Shen's team has created a smart new solution.”  - Professor Murray Rudman (Associate Dean Research)

This technology is set to increase our standard of living, improve our lives and potentially solve some of today’s key challenges that we face in energy, health and our environment.

The Faculty of Engineering would like to congratulate Wei Shen and his team on the prestigious achievement.