Professor Calum McNeil founded the Diagnostic and Therapeutic Technologies (D&TT) Research Group at Newcastle University in 1987. He retired in July 2018 and was awarded Emeritus Professor status. Under his direction, the D&TT group specialised in translational R&D on sensor technologies to improve clinical diagnostics and monitoring. This work led to the production of a number of electrochemical and microelectromechanical sensor systems capable of the direct, rapid measurement of biological and chemical species in complex matrices.