Greek-Cypriot DNA Electronics Chairman and CEO Chris Toumazou was awarded the European Inventor Award 2014 in the Research Category for his rapid USB-based DNA-testing device. His creation of a lab-on-a-chip technology, a system that can test for genetic disease and drug intolerances in patients in less than 30 minutes, is just one of over 50 patents that Toumazou holds for medical diagnostic instruments.

The newly-crowned top inventor and winner of the prestigious contest left school with no formal qualifications. After failing his 11-plus, Toumazou – one of five children of Greek Cypriot immigrants to the U.K. – left school in Cheltenham. Rather than pursue a career in the family’s catering business, he decided to study electrical studies at the local City and Guilds.He took a two-year ordinary diploma and this was followed by a degree in engineering at Oxford Polytechnic, now Oxford Brookes University, and then a PhD.

Within two years he was the youngest-ever appointed professor at Imperial in the late Eighties.His study in DNA chip technology was spurred with greater intensity after it was discovered that his son Marcus suffered from a genetic condition that was slowly destroying his kidneys. To improve health monitoring, Toumazou put pieces of DNA in microchips and in so doing found that he could make devices that would trigger signals when they came in contact with a particular DNA sample.

Using the patient’s saliva, a GP can tell if a somebody has a predisposition to a disease or can metabolise a medical drug.

Accepting his prize, Toumazou dedicated his invention to future doctors, to his son and to Melanie, his wife.