Brainy bandage

Open University technologists have won a Department of Trade and Industry award for inventing an "intelligent" dressing which alters its pressure to adjust to blood flow through the wound. Paul Lefrere and George Rzevski, collaborating with general practitioner Guru Nayani and the Cambridge company Ethical Devices, have developed a way of helping cure leg ulcers, which cost the Department of Health about Pounds 600 million a year. They hope a high-tech version of a support stocking will also help patients with varicose veins.