A total of £10m in public cash will be invested in emerging technology developed by scientists at Leeds University focusing on common complaints of old age including hip and knee problems, cancer and heart disease.

The award to create an Innovation and Knowledge Centre at the university will bring business expertise to the research to harness the full potential of latest breakthroughs and take them quickly from the laboratory bench to the hospital bedside.

The investment is likely to have a significant spin-off for jobs as the technology is developed, with at least 50 research posts among those expected to be created.

Doctors from Britain, Italy and Spain revealed this week how they had successfully implanted an artificial airway in a 30-year-old Colombian woman. This had been engineered in the laboratory from her stem cells in a breakthrough which experts hope will open the way for other damaged organs to be replaced.

Under the approach in Leeds, tissues damaged as they become worn out will be regenerated inside the body again using a patient's own stem cells.

Prof John Fisher, director of the Regenerative Therapies Centre at the university, said problems caused by natural wear and tear on the body would increase as more people lived longer. The therapies being developed in the city offered people the chance to remain fit and active for longer.

"We are working on technologies to help the UK's ageing population, with '50 more years after 50' as our principle," he said.

"The grant is a great opportunity for us to develop new and exciting regeneration therapies and devices."

Business expertise will identify and fast track innovations in about half the time previously taken to get them to global markets.

Lord Drayson, Minister of State for Science and Innovation, said the investment in Leeds and at a second centre in Belfast would "foster an entrepreneurial environment where groundbreaking research can mix at an early stage with business and potential customers".