A HAND-held kit which can test for toxic chemicals has been invented by a microbiologist at the University of York.

Dr Russell Grant was working on a third-year project as an undergraduate at York when the idea of the toxicity testing kit was born.

He and his academic supervisors were looking at the toxicity of pesticides, including sheep dips, and found they had to wait a month for results via the conventional lab-processing route.

Dr Grant established the Bioassay Toxicity Testing spin-off company based at the Innovation Centre at York Science Park.

He said: "The kit gives you a sensitive and obvious response very rapidly.

"It's ready to go, you don't have to prepare anything, and it can be used in all but the most extreme conditions."

Updated: 10:29 Wednesday, July 23, 2003