News Release Communique
Synchrotron Research Assists In Wake of Sept. 11
In the wake of the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, a California synchrotron will help identify airborne pollutants that could adversely affect the lungs of recovery workers and residents in the surrounding area.
Synchrotrons in the U.S. and Europe are also helping to provide new leads for finding drugs to combat anthrax, a significant threat as an agent of biological warfare and terrorism.
"These recent examples of important and diverse applications of synchrotron science underscore the exciting research opportunities that will be available to scientists at the Canadian Light Source (CLS), Canada's first synchrotron now being constructed on our campus," said University of Saskatchewan President Peter MacKinnon.
A synchrotron acts like a gigantic microscope that generates intense beams of brilliant light to view the microstructure of materials. The U of S-owned CLS national facility will begin operations in January, 2004. (For information on the CLS, visit http://www.lightsource.ca )
Identifying Airborne Pollutants
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has enlisted a University of California, Davis research group to help monitor the composition and movement of smoke and dust particles from the World Trade Center excavation site.
To detect rarely measured, very fine and ultra-fine (to 0.09 microns -- one micron equals one one-thousandth of a millimetre) particles that can lodge deeply in the lungs, the Advanced Light Source (ALS) at the University of California Berkeley Lab will be used to analyze the air samples. The first set of results is expected by mid-November.
"Details about the composition of these airborne particles should help authorities determine what safety measures are needed at the site, the length of work shifts, and whether workers need better measures to control the dust to protect local residents," states an Oct. 31 ALS users' newsletter.
Since October 1, a monitoring device on the roof of a building downwind from ground zero has been collecting air samples. In early November, the first batch of samples will be shipped back to California for analysis.
At UC Davis, an electron microscope and a mass spectrometer will be used to scan the air samples for asbestos, carcinogenic organic compounds and other toxins produced when plastic burns.
At the ALS, the X-ray microprobe beamline will be used to analyze the samples for the presence of elements sodium through uranium, but especially for toxic metals such as mercury, lead, and cadmium. (For more information, see http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/als_news/#3 )
Battling Bioterrorism
Synchrotron science is also coming to the aid of medical scientists seeking ways to battle the bacterium responsible for anthrax disease.
Bacillus anthracis secretes a toxin made up of three proteins. Recently, Nature magazine took the unusual step of publishing on the Internet an important paper that describes the crystal structure of one of these proteins -- "lethal factor" or LF, the crucial pathogenic enzyme of anthrax toxin. (See http://www.nature.com/nature/anthrax )
The work was done with the help of five American and European synchrotrons (light sources at Stanford, Cal.; Daresbury, U.K.; Grenoble, France; Chicago, Ill.; and Long Island, N.Y.).
Scientists now have a picture of how the lethal factor enzyme attacks cells. Now drug companies can search for chemicals that will block this activity, paving the way for potential new anti-anthrax drugs.
Probing the structure of proteins to come up with drugs against various toxins and safe, effective vaccines is exactly the kind of work that will be done on a planned protein crystallography beamline at the CLS. The synchrotron is the tool of choice for this type of work because it's faster and more precise than conventional technology.
Scientists from across Canada will use the CLS in the search for new vaccines and drugs. VIDO (Veterinary Infectious Disease Organization), a U of S-based global leader in infectious disease research, recently turned the sod for a $14.3-million expansion next door to the CLS, enabling researchers to decode proteins manufactured by genes and combat infectious diseases in both animals and humans.
For more information, or to arrange interviews with synchrotron scientists, contact:
Kathryn Warden
Research Communications Officer
Office of the Vice President (Research)
Tel: (306) 966-2506
Fax: (306) 966-2411
kathryn.warden@usask.ca
Last modified: 2012-01-19 17:01:46