Nine handpicked research projects from Irish universities will lay out their wares at an Enterprise Ireland event next week to see if they can be matched with entrepreneurs, industrialists or interested companies for mutual commercial gain.

The projects, covering everything from less invasive ways to diagnose colon cancer to software that will have security forces detect narcotics, will be presented at the Informatics Technology Commercialisation Showcase matchmaking event in UCD next Thursday.

This is the second year of the event which showcases the most promising research projects in universities and research institutes. The projects target a range of industry sectors from medical imaging to aeronautics and education to the internet. The event is organised by InvestNet.

Prof Paul Whelan of Dublin City University will present his research project entitled Virtual Colonoscopy developed with the Mater Private Hospital. The software that Whelan's Vision Systems Group (VSG) has developed detects colon cancer based on CT scan data.

The major advantage over existing methods is that radiologists do not have to carry out invasive colonoscopy procedures. Prof Whelan and his group are seeking partners to commercialise the technology.

Dr Michael Madden from the Machine Learning & Data Mining Group at NUI Galway is presenting a suite of software based on optical spectroscopy which detects the presence of materials. It has been developed to detect the presence of narcotics with the intention that it could be used by police, customs and border patrols.

Other projects being showcased include an e-commerce recommendation system, software to change the facial expression of a person in a digital picture and a system for easily creating websites that can be viewed on mobile phones.

According to Gearóid Mooney, director of informatics research and commercialisation with Enterprise Ireland, three of the 13 promoters who presented last year have successfully spun out their companies, while another is expected to do so by year end.

"We consider this no more than a reasonable start, the start of a sustained effort to mine the growing Irish research resource for every possible scrap of commercial opportunity that could provide a return to the Irish economy," said Mr Mooney.