EPSRC : Samuel Valman : EP/S023577/1 This project will develop a system to monitor river water discharge using satellite imagery. The method will focus on measuring discharge during the snowmelt season in Québec. This snowmelt period is traditionally the most difficult in which to measure discharge, with traditional methods isolated to single points along the river and prone to error during high flow events. This new method will use data from the PlanetScope constellation of "cubesat" satellites which enable the collection of daily high-resolution images of study rivers. Fieldwork will be conducted to statistically link in-river discharge to river width measurements obtained from satellite imagery; this statistical model will subsequently allow the prediction of discharge from satellite-measured river width on daily timescales and high accuracy. Expected outputs of this product include a research article detailing the method and the development of a web-based interface that will be used for monitoring river discharge in flood-prone rivers.

One in two people will be diagnosed with cancer during their lifetime, presenting a significant challenge to the UK goal of "staying healthy for longer". For some cancers, therapeutic innovations have increased survival, but for other cancers, such as brain cancer, outcomes have changed little in 20 years. A topic of increasing interest in the cancer research community is the critical role of metabolism in cancer cell behaviour. The Warburg effect, a metabolic switch from oxidative to glycolytic metabolism in cancer cells, has been documented for over decades, but much remains unknown about the nature and significance of cancer cell metabolism. The intrinsic pyrogenic substances secreted by tumour cells induce distinct hyperthermia in the temperature range of 37 to 42 C. Simultaneously, different parts of the cell can be at different temperatures, with mitochondria more than 10 C above basal temperature. We need to investigate fundamental unknowns about cancer cell metabolism, its role in cancer growth and the potential of targeting more metabolically active regions within cancer for therapy. Significantly, there is increasing awareness that this needs to be done in the context of intact cancer tissue, where the cancer cell interactions with the cellular microenvironment can be observed. Cancer cell-microenvironment interactions influence cancer cell biology and are not effectively modelled using in vitro cancer cell cultures. Crucially, then, cancer cell metabolism must be interrogated in tissue slice culture, and ultimately in rodent models, for which we need innovative technologies as proposed here. For this, it is necessary to have an imaging technique capable of working in three dimensions in thick tissue, and able to provide the temperature distributions in the cancer environment. This can be achieved by using luminescent nanoparticles as probes. Such nanoparticles can be 500 times smaller than a red blood cell, and when they are excited with light of a wavelength ("colour"), they will re-emit light in a different wavelength. The analysis of this re-emitted light can provide information about the temperature of its environment. Importantly, certain wavelengths can propagate longer in tissue without being attenuated, which can be used for obtaining information from inner areas. This will enable the 3D reconstruction of the map of temperatures.

The Hub will create a seamless link between science and applications by building on our established knowledge exchange activities in quantum technologies. We will transform science into technology by developing new products, demonstrating their applications and advantages, and establishing a strong user base in diverse sectors. Our overarching ambition is to deliver a wide range of quantum sensors to underpin many new commercial applications. Our key objective is to ensure that the Hub's outputs will have been picked up by companies, or industry-led TSB projects, by the end of the funding period. The Hub will comprise: a strong fabrication component; quantum scientists with a demonstrated ability to combine scientific excellence with technological delivery; leading engineers with the broad collective expertise and connections required to develop and use new quantum sensors. We have identified, and actively involved, industry enablers to build a supply chain for quantum sensor technology. As well as direct physics connections to industry, the engineers provide strong links to relevant industrial users, thus providing information on industrial needs and enabling rapid prototype deployment in the field. To establish a coherent national collaborative effort, the Hub will include a UK network on quantum sensors and metrology, which will also exploit the connections that Prof Bongs and all Hub members have forged in Europe, the US and Asia. This inter-linkage ensures capture of the most advanced developments in quantum technology around the world for exploitation by the UK. Quantum sensors and metrology, plus some devices in quantum communication, are the only areas where laboratory prototypes have already proven superior to their best classical counterparts. This sets the stage, credibly, for rapid and disruptive applications emerging from the Hub. The selection of prototypes will be driven by commercial pull, i.e. each prototype project within the Hub must demonstrate, from the outset, industry or practitioner engagement from our engineering and/or industrial collaborators. We have strong industry support across several disciplines with the structures in place actively to manage technology and knowledge transfer to the industry sector. Particular roles are played by NPL and e2V. We will closely collaborate with NPL as metrology end-user on clock, magnetometer and potentially Watt balance developments with a lecturer-level Birmingham-NPL fellow contributed by Birmingham University and our PRDAs spending ~17 man-years in addition to 3-5 PhD students on these joint projects in the Advanced Metrology Laboratory/incubator space. E2v have a unique industrial manufacturing/R&D facility co-located within the School of Physics and Astronomy at Nottingham that has already catalysed the expansion of their activities into the Quantum Technology domain. Public Engagement conveying the Hub's breakthroughs will be a high priority - for example annually at the Royal Society Summer Exhibitions. In addition to cohort-training of 80 PhD students working within the Hub, the Hub will contribute to the training of ~500 PhD students via electronically-shared lectures (many already running within the e-learning graduate schools MPAGS, MEGS, SEPNET and SUPA) across the institutions within the Hub. The Hub will create an internationally-leading centre of excellence with major impact in the area of quantum sensors and metrology. To widen the impact of the Hub and ensure long-term sustainability, we will actively pursue European and other international collaborative funding for both underlying fundamental research and the technology development.