Search
06 Sept 2025
Search
06 Sept 2025
Please allow ads as they help fund our trusted local news content.
Kindly add us to your ad blocker whitelist.
If you want further access to Ireland's best local journalism, consider contributing and/or subscribing to our free daily Newsletter .
Support our mission and join our community now.
To continue reading this article, you can subscribe for as little as €0.50 per week which will also give you access to all of our premium content and archived articles!
Alternatively, you can pay €0.50 per article, capped at €1 per day.
Thank you for supporting Ireland's best local journalism!
An autonomous device designed to help people with respiratory conditions combat mucus has been named the UK national winner of the James Dyson award.
Pleural, created by a team of students from Imperial College and the Royal College of Art in London, administers chest physiotherapy via a silicone cup which is attached to the chest to help mobilise mucus from the lungs.
The team say they hope the device could be used to help people suffering from conditions such as asthma, cystic fibrosis and bronchiectasis.
By winning the national league of the annual engineering awards, Pleural will receive £5,000 as well as progressing to the international stage of the competition.
Rumyana Dancheva, senior design engineer at Dyson and UK national judge for the James Dyson Awards, said: “Pleural targets a real-life problem with a compelling solution, which was well communicated through research, test data and physical prototypes.
“It was great to see that the development was driven by putting the user in the centre of the design.
“I am pleased that Pleural is this year’s UK national winner and I am very much looking forward to seeing how this project will develop over time.”
Daniel Hale, engineering lead for Pleural, said: “Winning the James Dyson award means that we’ll be able to develop Pleural and take this product to those affected by mucus-related respiratory health conditions, impacting their lives for the better.
“The James Dyson Award represents the forefront of innovation to us, particularly in the UK, and has been something we’ve all tracked as long as we’ve been designers.
“It’s a huge honour that Pleural has been selected as the UK National Winner in 2023 to join many of the proposals we’ve admired over the years, and we look forward to developing Pleural further.”
Subscribe or register today to discover more from DonegalLive.ie
Buy the e-paper of the Donegal Democrat, Donegal People's Press, Donegal Post and Inish Times here for instant access to Donegal's premier news titles.
Keep up with the latest news from Donegal with our daily newsletter featuring the most important stories of the day delivered to your inbox every evening at 5pm.
This publication supports the work of the Press Council of Ireland and Office of the Press Ombudsman, and our staff operate within the Code of Practice of the Press Council. You can obtain a copy of the Code, or contact the Council, at www.presscouncil.ie, Lo-call 1800 208 080 or email: info@presscouncil.ie.
