I worked for Mark Sims on the Beagle 2 project a few years back [ho ho!]. The life marker chip is a device his team has been developing for a future Mars exploration mission. But it looks like their prototypes have found a more immediate application in medicine.
The team believes the equipment can be used to diagnose over 40 diseases, from sepsis through to bacterial infections such as C. Difficile and some cancers.
