A £220 million fund will be made available to encourage innovation within the UK's NHS, Health Minister Lord Darzi announced today, during an event at the Science Museum in London to mark the launch of 'Innovation for a Healthier Future', a series of initiatives to nurture and reward innovation within the NHS.

The EU must boost its visionary IT (information technology) research policy in order to lead the way in turning bright research ideas into future technologies, the first ever European Future Technologies Conference heard yesterday. The event, which runs from 21 to 23 April in Prague, Czech Republic, was organised by the European Commission to foster a discussion on frontier science and how tomorrow's technologies could impact on society.

Unlimited computing power, computers mimicking the brain, mind-controlled wheelchairs and friendly robotic companions are part of a new European plan to boost visionary research, unveiled by the European Commission. With more investment and cooperation in high-risk research on future information technologies, Europe can lead the way in turning bright research ideas into future technologies.

In a video posted on her website, Viviane Reding, the European Union's Commissioner for Information Society and Media, said that Europeans must have the right to control how their personal information is used, and said that the Commission would take action wherever EU Member States failed to ensure that new technologies such as behavioural advertising, RFID 'smart chips' or online social networking respected this right.

The international consortium of the EU project has developed and launched a Virtual Academy for Health: a unique virtual space created for exchanging and gaining knowledge on European healthcare issues that fosters the use of ICT for learning, exchange, and collaboration in the healthcare sector, multiplies and furthermore consolidates dialogue arenas among policy makers, students, researchers, healthcare professionals and citizens.

Dilated cardiomyopathy, a heart muscle disease leading to dilation and impaired contraction of the left ventricle, is a severe and often familial disease. It is difficult to diagnose the disease with cardiac ultrasound, particularly at an early stage when there are only minimal, early changes of the heart. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has developed a method based on cardiac MRI, currently in research use, to help the physician to identify disease-related changes of the heart at an early stage.

Today, citizens aged 65+ make up 16 percent of the total population in all EU countries; this is projected to rise to 18 percent by 2010 and will continue to rise. The most dramatic increase is expected in the 80+ age range with a corresponding increase in co-morbidities that will place additional strains on existing health systems.