The dragons were sitting in an elegant den at the Royal Society in London, Britain's national academy of sciences. Overlooked by portraits of great 18th-century scientists, the judges heard four powerful pitches for science-based businesses.

These included an image analysis system to assess the facial mobility of people who are suffering from paralysing diseases or have had surgery on the face; a "text mining" tool to extract chemical information from the world's scientific literature; an educational venture, called Big Bang in a Box, to sell images of high-energy particle collisions at Cern's new atom smasher; and a lightweight material stronger than steel, for use in body armour and the aerospace industry.

The Dragons' Den competition - modelled on the popular venture capitalist television format - was the climax of a Business of Science programme put on by Imperial College Business School for the Royal Society's University Research Fellows . These are some of Europe's brightest scientists, typically in their 30s, who are funded for five years to work in a UK university.