Scientists have developed an "intelligent knife" that can tell surgeons immediately whether the tissue they are cutting is cancerous or not. In the first study to test the invention in the operating theatre, the "iKnife" diagnosed tissue samples from 91 patients with 100 per cent accuracy, instantly providing information that normally takes up to half an hour to reveal using laboratory tests.

The European Commission has proposed a follow up to the Ambient Assisted Living Joint Programme (AAL JP) for 2014 - 2020, to continue the success of the present programme in applied research for ageing well with ICT. The aim of the AAL JP is to support industry, in particular SME to bring digital innovative products and services for ageing well to the European market. Alignment with the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (EIP AHA) could further boost deployment at European scale.

The GRANATUM web portal is now online, ready to connect biomedical researchers. The public GRANATUM IT platform provides access to information about cancer research and established pharmaceutical agents from 83 global data sources in an integrated, semantically interlinked manner.

The Strategic Intelligence Monitor on Personal Health Systems (SIMPHS) research started in 2009 with the analysis of the market for Remote Patient Monitoring and Treatment (RMT) within Personal Health Systems (PHS) from a supply side perspective. The objective was to assess the RMT market current size and future growth perspectives, provide an understanding of the market structure, innovation dynamics, types of market players involved and strategies followed, and ultimately identify market drivers and barriers as well as areas for policy action.

MyHealthAvatar project aims to proof the concept of the digital representation of your health status. Your health status will be designed as a lifetime companion (Avatar). Your Health Avatar will facilitate the collection of, and access to, long-term health-status information. This will be extremely valuable for healthcare decisions and offer a promising approach to support health research.

Some 165 million Europeans are likely to experience some form of brain-related disease during their life. As the population ages, Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative or age-related mental disorders are affecting more people ­and contributing to higher health costs.

A safer and healthier old age - that is the aim of GiraffPlus, an international project led by researchers at Örebro University, Sweden. With a focus of developing sophisticated aids for the elderly in close collaboration with the intended users, the project is now about to test the new technology in real homes.