Posted by: Karl McFaul in Untagged on
Mar 17, 2010
I'm attending a seminar co-arranged by the ESS and Lund University where Henrik Birkedal is giving a talk on Biological and Bioinspired Materials - or, "From Biology to Materials". The presentation deals specifically with the study of bone materials in the body.
What Henrik as a researcher wants to investigate is the link between structure and dynamics, how structure works in action. Complex materials, like bone structure in the human body, is a hierarchical structure. By studying how bone development takes place, how the bone fibres grows, we can find solutions to medical problems. For example osteoporosis. About 40% of all women above 50 gets osteoporosis, and all women above 80 suffer from osteoporosis. Men are also developing osteoporosis.
Henrik and his team of researchers are using an experimental method called SAXS for studying bone material. SAXS gives high precision with very small x-ray beams making it possible to map very small structures in the bone tissue sample (down to ~62 um beam size).
The resolution of the intrument is important for the amount of detailed data being generated. But still it's good to combine synchrotron x-ray beams (which gives higher resolution) and regular nano sourcing techniques since they produce different precicion at different length scales of what needs to be studied in the material - and it provides the researcher with more data to do a more precise analysis.
Posted by: Karl McFaul in Untagged on
Nov 15, 2009
ESS was the theme for Medicon Valley Alliance annual meeting 2009 in Copenhagen. A notable list of speakers were chosen for the event. From ESS we were represented by deputy director Partik Carlsson explaining more in detail how ESS works and how we will benefit from its research.
A prize was given, The Medicon Valley Cross-Border Award, to a scientist or business person who has established a collaboration across Øresund which has produced results within life science that would not have been possible without the collaboration.
The lucky receiver of the award this year was MD DMSc Professor Nils Brünner, who has has a background from both Denmark and Sweden. He opened his thank you speech by claiming that there has never been a border between Sweden and Denmark!
The Jury's verdict for giving the prize to Nils Brünner: "For his effort to set up collaborations with scientific groups from Lund and Uppsala University, which has produced joint results within identification and clinical validation of biomarkers for colorectal cancer prognosis and treatment prediction and prognostic and predictive markers for breast cancer as well as the development of a new treatment for breast and colon cancer patients"
Over all, speakers from both sides of the Øresund praised the success in getting the ESS project to where it is now with all the opportunities it opens for the future science within energy, health, new materials, chemistry, climate and environment.
Uffe Toudal Pedersen, Permanent Secretary, The Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation said that "If it hadn't been for the clever work and constant pressure from the Swedish administration of ESS, we wouldn't be here today."
Uffe Toudal Pedersen also emphasized the importance of building an attractive region and work on the international marketing of this region.
He concluded that from a perspective of beneficial investments that gives a lot back to the people, researchers and business life around Øresund, ESS can only be a winner!
The Swedish Government were represented by the Swedish State Secretary, Peter Honeth, who told about Sweden's commitment to stay ahead in the global competition and that Øresund is one of the large science regions in the world - "ESS represents possibilities in this region which is of utmost importance for the future."
Another great speaker who came across really well in explaining the benefit of the advanced research that will be done at the ESS was Liselotte Højgaard, Head of Department and director at Copenhagen University Hospital and Professor in Medical Technology at the University of Copenhagen.
Liselotte told us about the paradigm shift in the studies of medicine and the treatments of diseases. We have moved from the "resolution" of man, to cells, to the molecules and atoms we're made of. One atom can be the difference from sick to healthy. Neutron science is relevant for nano medicine to protein research.
Understanding disease at the cellular and molecular level, based on fundamental discoveries in chemistry, physics and biology is crucial for understanding the processes of life itself. Neutrons can help solving major challeges in health scieces and Liselotte enthusiastically promoted the booklet Neutrons and Health (downloadable here) produced by ESS deputy director for science, Dr Christian Vettier.
Giving some examples on what neutron science can do for us, Liselotte told us that in the future human bone cells will be cultured to produce new artificially regenerated bone, new cartilage in joints and lung airways. Neutron diffraction is central to reveal the atomic-scale detail of the new artificial material.
The challenge for structural biology in the 21st century is to develop a comprehenive description of protein structures. Research and innovation with neutron scattering will make major contributions in this area.
Liselotte Højgaard concluded: Only our imagination and creativity - or the lack of it - will set the limit!
Posted by: Christian Vettier in workshop, tennessee, simulation, science, Scandinavia, research, neutron scattering, McStas, knoxville, it, ill, icns, ess scandinavia, energy, conference on
May 26, 2009
Scandinavia was highly represented at the ICNS meeting in Knoxville, Tennessee. Scandinavian scientists gave three invited talks and several (8) oral contributions, not counting many posters. In total, 30 contributions were presented by scientists affiliated in Scandinavia, which is a very large number compared to other countries, but reflects the expertise and experience of Scandinavia in the field of neutron research. Moreover, a parallel one-day workshop on neutron instrument simulation was organised by McStas experts from Copenhagen and Risø (and ILL!) where neutron scientists could get some training in instrument modeling.
This does not come as a surprise since the neutron community in Scandinavia has developed neutron science for decades through the research carried out at the facilities for neutron scattering in Denmark, Sweden and Norway.
- In Denmark, Risø National Laboratory (now Risø DTU) has an outstanding international reputation in neutron diffraction and neutron scattering research and has been developed over the years thanks to their reactor-based neutron facility. Risø has had a seminal role in neutron methods and has had an impact on all neutron instruments. All the expertise acquired there has been passed on to other neutron centres in the world, in particular SINQ at PSI, Switzerland, where Danish scientists are operating several instruments.
- In Sweden, scientists are using neutron scattering methods in soft condensed matter, in physics and chemistry in engineering sciences; they work at the ILL, Grenoble, at ISIS in UK, at PSI in Switzerland, but also in Germany. In Sweden, experiments were performed at the Swedish research reactor R2 in Studsvik. The NFL - Studsvik Neutron Research Laboratory was a leading institute for neutron sciences. As a company, Studsvik operates not only in Sweden, but also in UK, Germany or USA and has a further company segment for Global Services.
- In Norway, the research reactor JEEP II at Kjeller (Institute for Energy Technology, IFE, near Oslo) is a national resource for material physics research and neutron irradiation technology. The availability of this multi-purpose reactor is kept very high to content the many user-groups.
All these centres have joined forces to develop modeling tools to optimise various neutron instruments, which explains why the Copenhagen / Roskilde group is acquired such high repute in neutron instrument modeling and virtual experiments run on computers.
As a complement to the international organisation now being built up by ESS Scandinavia for designing and developing the accelerator driven, next generation neutron source in Sweden; the 273 neutron users in Scandinavia will provide us with a solid base of supporting expertise right in the neighbourhoods of Lund!
Neutron scattering does not only enable important research to be carried out, which helps us to understand materials and life a bit more, but also brings people to nice countries. Being part of the ESS Scandinavia team, I'm based at ILL in Grenoble, the capital of the French Alps. I'm preparing for the future, working with world-class leading scientists from all over Europe in the fields of materials science and neutron instrumentation.
Today was an "Analyzing data day" at ILL. Numbercrunching you might say. Digging too much into data made my senses continue analysing even on my way home to our place in the outskirts of Grenoble. I, as always, had first to face the stochastic motions - the origin of quasielastic scattering for a neutron freak - in French traffic. By this I mean a more or less "amorphous" behaviour in car-driving here, where red lights and parking spots appear to serve only as guides for strangers like me. However, the opposite (the ordered structure) exists as well - here in France you need to fill in loads of papers and they may even ask you about your shoe size if you, for example, are about to buy a radio. These are just some of my observations of everyday life in France - and I like to make the comparison to Sweden, where you probably can buy a castle without signing a single paper and without telling the seller who you are.
Passing by the grocery store on my way home, I purchased the essentials for this weekend's activity, walking. My skis were stolen a few weeks ago, but the scenery is nevertheless magnificent on foot! So what did I buy? - Baguettes, cheese, wine and yoghurt of course!!! I'm still amazed about the thousands of different kinds of yoghurt you find here!. But then again a foreigner in Sweden would marvel at the hundreds of different kinds of milk we seem to need to survive. Does anyone know what "långfil" is for example...
The closing address to ICNS was given by a lyrical Sunil Sinha, in great form. Sunil reviewed the impact of neutron scattering methods on major fields of science, stressing the uniqueness of neutrons but also the complementarity with synchrotron x-rays. He said, and he was absolutely right, that modern neutron sources sit next to synchrotron x-rays sources. This is why ESS will be built next to the MAX IV synchrotron!
