Brightest light in universe to examine lung cancer cells
James Randerson, science correspondent
Friday July 7, 2006
The Guardian
The Diamond sychrotron in Oxfordshire will produce the brightest light in the known universe to help scientists study lung cancer cells. It is the size of 5 football fields.
It sounds like the stuff of post-millennial conspiracy theorists. New Year 2007 will see the arrival of a light brighter than anything in the known universe at a field in Oxfordshire. But this is no Spielbergesque alien visitation. A £250m machine will be switched on, which is designed to help scientists peer in more detail than ever before at the fine structure of cells.
The Diamond synchrotron's predecessor had a hand in everything from designing the anti-cancer drug Herceptin to improving chocolate manufacture and working out whether Beethoven was poisoned. But because Diamond is a MILLION times brighter it will allow scientists to look at tiny structure in much more detail.
It will allow us to "look into the dark corners of this world with much more precision", said Gerhard Materlik, chief executive of the project. Most of the funding for the machine has come from the government while the research charity the Wellcome Trust is providing the rest.
Diamond is a particle accelerator which boosts packets of 10m electrons to close to the speed of light and whizzes them round a magnetic ring over half kilometre in circumference. As they spin they give off electro-magnetic radiation such as visible light, x-rays and infra-red radiation. Scientists use these beams of radiation to home in on the details of tiny structures.
It is being built in tandem with a complementary machine in France called Soleil. This will specialise in different applications, and scientists will make use of both. The machines are the largest publicly funded fundamental research projects in the two countries.
Josep Sulé-Suso, a cancer doctor at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire, plans to use Diamond to study the way lung cancer cells react to drugs. He is using Diamond's predecessor to bombard individual cells with infra-red light and watches how the light they absorb changes. The absorption changes are caused by chemical changes in the cells.
"It has huge potential," said Dr Sulé-Suso. He envisages being able to screen samples from patients for tumours that have yet to show symptoms or to examine tissue after chemotherapy to check the cancer has been destroyed.
The machine has even been used to settle a forensic puzzle nearly two centuries old. By examining locks of Beethoven's hair, scientists found evidence of large quantities of lead, suggesting the composer's death was brought on by lead poisoning.
Another application is in studying the shape of molecules by bombarding them with x-rays. "You can pick apart materials without having to open them up," said Sarnjeet Dhesi, a researcher at Diamond. Radiation hitting the molecules is diffracted and produces a pattern on the far side of the x-ray beam that can be used to work out the molecule's structure. This was how Watson and Crick worked out the double-helical structure of DNA.
The great advantage of Diamond is that it will allow researchers to look at the structure of awkward proteins which span the outer coat of living cells, the membrane. These proteins are often what invaders such as viruses use to enter the cell and understanding how this happens can be vital to designing a vaccine.
But membrane proteins have proved extremely difficult to visualise using x-ray sources. Diamond's extra brightness means that scientists only need a small quantity of the protein, making them much easier to study.
guardian.co.uk
James Randerson, science correspondent
Friday July 7, 2006
The Guardian
The Diamond sychrotron in Oxfordshire will produce the brightest light in the known universe to help scientists study lung cancer cells. It is the size of 5 football fields.
It sounds like the stuff of post-millennial conspiracy theorists. New Year 2007 will see the arrival of a light brighter than anything in the known universe at a field in Oxfordshire. But this is no Spielbergesque alien visitation. A £250m machine will be switched on, which is designed to help scientists peer in more detail than ever before at the fine structure of cells.
The Diamond synchrotron's predecessor had a hand in everything from designing the anti-cancer drug Herceptin to improving chocolate manufacture and working out whether Beethoven was poisoned. But because Diamond is a MILLION times brighter it will allow scientists to look at tiny structure in much more detail.
It will allow us to "look into the dark corners of this world with much more precision", said Gerhard Materlik, chief executive of the project. Most of the funding for the machine has come from the government while the research charity the Wellcome Trust is providing the rest.
Diamond is a particle accelerator which boosts packets of 10m electrons to close to the speed of light and whizzes them round a magnetic ring over half kilometre in circumference. As they spin they give off electro-magnetic radiation such as visible light, x-rays and infra-red radiation. Scientists use these beams of radiation to home in on the details of tiny structures.
It is being built in tandem with a complementary machine in France called Soleil. This will specialise in different applications, and scientists will make use of both. The machines are the largest publicly funded fundamental research projects in the two countries.
Josep Sulé-Suso, a cancer doctor at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire, plans to use Diamond to study the way lung cancer cells react to drugs. He is using Diamond's predecessor to bombard individual cells with infra-red light and watches how the light they absorb changes. The absorption changes are caused by chemical changes in the cells.
"It has huge potential," said Dr Sulé-Suso. He envisages being able to screen samples from patients for tumours that have yet to show symptoms or to examine tissue after chemotherapy to check the cancer has been destroyed.
The machine has even been used to settle a forensic puzzle nearly two centuries old. By examining locks of Beethoven's hair, scientists found evidence of large quantities of lead, suggesting the composer's death was brought on by lead poisoning.
Another application is in studying the shape of molecules by bombarding them with x-rays. "You can pick apart materials without having to open them up," said Sarnjeet Dhesi, a researcher at Diamond. Radiation hitting the molecules is diffracted and produces a pattern on the far side of the x-ray beam that can be used to work out the molecule's structure. This was how Watson and Crick worked out the double-helical structure of DNA.
The great advantage of Diamond is that it will allow researchers to look at the structure of awkward proteins which span the outer coat of living cells, the membrane. These proteins are often what invaders such as viruses use to enter the cell and understanding how this happens can be vital to designing a vaccine.
But membrane proteins have proved extremely difficult to visualise using x-ray sources. Diamond's extra brightness means that scientists only need a small quantity of the protein, making them much easier to study.
guardian.co.uk
