Lab staff toast £150m lifeline

THE future looks rosy for Daresbury Laboratory following Trade and Industry Secretary Stephen Byers' announcement on Friday that two projects worth £150m will go to the lab.

The projects will safeguard the jobs of 500 laboratory staff and will form the basis of the new Centre for Accelerator Science, Imaging and Medicine which has been the subject of campaigning and lobbying by lab staff, MPs and international researchers.

The news was received with jubilation at Daresbury. Public relations spokesman Tony Buckley said: "It is fair to say that on Saturday morning lab staff woke up with a sense of relief and a hangover."

Dr Rob Lewis, head of imaging at Daresbury, and a leading campaigner for the new centre, said: "We have all pulled together to make a Phoenix arise from the ashes."

Daresbury's future has been in jeopardy since last year when the lab lost the lucrative Diamond synchrotron radiation project to its sister lab in Oxfordshire.

The new centre, known as CASIM, will initially consist of a £100m Proton Cyclotron project and a £50m fourth generation light source.

The benefits of the projects will be wide-ranging, from improved detection of cancer to a greater understanding of the universe.

The Proton Cyclotron will enable great strides forward to be made in medical, scientific and industrial fields. It will have two strands, one medical and one based on nuclear physics. The project will involve the NHS North West and will mean that in the future, cancer patients will be treated at Daresbury.

Said Dr Lewis: "People in the north west should be able to have the best cancer treatment and the best diagnostics of anywhere in the country."

The fourth generation light source will also lead to far reaching benefits in health, and also in areas such as computer chips.

Dr Elaine Seddon, project leader of the fourth generation light source at Daresbury, said the project would provide a very wide ranging research tool which will be used by biologists, physicists, chemists and medical scientists. The long term benefits will be in fields such as arterial schlerosis, with blocked arteries being cleared with a laser. Laser surgery will benefit too, with tumours being removed with reduced damage to surrounding tissues. A new generation of computer chips will be another benefit.

The projects are subject to approval through normal scientific review processes later this month, and the completion of feasibility studies.

Work is expected to start soon on the details of setting up CASIM at Daresbury. Most of the centre will be housed in existing buildings which will be adapted, and there may also be some new building.