Royal visit marks launch of new national synchrotron facility

Imperial professors attend prestigious Royal opening of Diamond Light Source - News

By Danielle Reeves
Monday 22 October 2007

Senior academics from Imperial College London attended the launch of Diamond Light Source, the UK's new national synchrotron facility, which was officially opened by Her Majesty The Queen, accompanied by His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh last week. Imperial is the first UK university to have a laboratory of scientists based at Diamond Light Source.

The synchrotron is a multimillion pound facility which consists of a doughnut-shaped building the size of five football pitches, around the centre of which electrons are accelerated to almost the speed of light. When electrons are accelerated on a circular path, they lose energy in the form of extremely powerful x-rays which shoot off at a tangent to the electron ring. It is these x-ray beams that scientists at Diamond use for extremely high-resolution analysis of molecules and materials in a variety of different experiments in both the biological and physical sciences.

Professors Sir Peter Knight FRS, Principal of Imperial's Faculty of Natural Sciences, John Wood FREng, Principal of Imperial's Faculty of Engineering and Steven Rose from the Department of Physics attended the prestigious launch on Friday 19 October. They joined Imperial researchers based at Diamond Light Source, led by Professor So Iwata of the Division of Molecular Biosciences, for the event which saw the royal party touring the synchrotron machine and being shown examples of the kind of work it can be used for. Professor Iwata and his colleagues are using the diamond synchrotron to analyse the structure of proteins found in cell membranes.

Sir Peter, who is also Chair of the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Science Board, said: "This launch event is a fitting beginning for the largest science facility to be built in the UK for 40 years. The research potential of Diamond is immense, and I'm delighted that the work Professor Iwata and his colleagues are carrying out here means that Imperial College London is already playing a key role in using this fantastic facility."

Diamond represents a joint venture, co-funded by the UK Government (86 per cent) via STFC (Science and Technology Facilities Council), and the Wellcome Trust (14 per cent). Professor Keith Mason, Chief Executive Officer of STFC, said: "Many of the everyday commodities we take for granted, from revolutionary drugs and surgical tools, to food and electronics, have been developed or improved using synchrotron light. Diamond represents the next generation of light sources in the UK, building on the heritage of the world's first dedicated synchrotron which was constructed in 1981 at our Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire."

The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh were shown how the powerful x-ray light is produced and exploited, along with the range of science to which Diamond has already started to contribute. Since the first research scientists were welcomed to Diamond in January 2007, a wide variety of experiments have taken place. These include research work that could potentially lead to drugs being available to prevent cancer cells from spreading, studying meteorites to understand the early solar system, examining ways to improve digital data storage through improved magnetic materials, and using the powerful X-rays to investigate fragile ancient parchments.

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