Shining lights

Issue 19 | Autumn/Winter 2007

Report: Samantha Blair

Advance experiments at the Australian Synchrotron commenced recently, bringing cutting-edge scientific research close to home. Australian scientists who once had to queue for slots at overseas facilities can now take advantage of the new facility adjacent to Monash University's Clayton campus.

The $200 million facility is due to officially open later this year. SAMANTHA BLAIR recently spent time with researchers at Monash University's Centre for Synchrotron Science to examine the impact of the new scientific instrument on their work.

In a piece of scientific equipment as large as a football field, project partners successfully participated in initial experiments at the Australian Synchrotron in April this year, on schedule and heralding an exciting new era for Australian research.

Director of the Monash Centre for Synchrotron Science Professor Rob Lewis said this was a great opportunity for Monash University.

"To have the Australian Synchrotron right on our doorstep means Monash can take a pre-eminent position in the development of synchrotron science and in the application of the Australian Synchrotron to many research fields," he said.

Professor Lewis, a pioneer in applying synchrotron science to medical research is involved in many projects including cancer diagnosis using X-ray scattering, the study of how we take our first breaths, understanding the effect of therapies on cystic fibrosis, studying the developmental biology of marsupials, and trying to develop better methods of treating tumours with radiotherapy.

He is also investigating the medical applications of synchrotrons - specifically, advanced X-ray imaging, disease diagnosis using X-ray scattering and microbeam radiotherapy.

"If everything works, we will improve the quality of hospital X-ray imaging and speed up biopsy analysis. The microbeam radiotherapy work has the potential to revolutionise radiotherapy, although that is a little further down the track," Professor Lewis said.

As a founding investor in the Australian Synchrotron, Monash and its staff have contributed in many ways to the establishment of the facility.

While the Australian Synchrotron was being built, Monash was developing the Monash Centre for Synchrotron Science. The Centre was created to encourage and promote cross-faculty and interdepartmental research programs in synchrotron-related fields at Monash University. World-class research in fields ranging from forensic pathology to ore processing will use the new facility.

The Centre provides advice and assistance to researchers, develops platform technologies, engages in education programs across the university and funds research fellowships and student scholarships.

John McDougall, who is Associate Director of the Centre, said Australian scientists will no longer have to fly to Europe or America to conduct research.

"Several hundred Australian scientists and students use synchrotrons in their work," he said. "There are only about 50 synchrotrons in the world and researchers have to queue up to use them. It can take six to 12 months to get a time slot at an overseas synchrotron."

Monash researchers are preparing to use the device to assist their enquiries and analysis across a wide range of disciplines.

Dr Christopher Hall joined Monash University late last year and his research career started at Southampton University Physics Department in the UK studying gamma ray emission from the cosmos.

After leaving astronomical science, Dr Hall joined a detector research group at the UK Synchrotron Radiation Source at Daresbury.

In this role he helped develop several photon detectors which made the scientific exploitation of synchrotron light both novel and efficient. His research interests were directed towards using synchrotrons along with the detectors developed for them, to push forward medical sciences, including projects developing new forms of breast cancer diagnosis.

Dr Hall has recently started looking at ways to make cells in synchrotron x-ray imaging more visible.

Research has discovered that certain cancer cells tagged with nanoparticles of gold become clearly visible and behave as if the cellular 'jewellery' were not there at all.

"We created the study as a way of tracking the development of glioma. This is a particularly difficult brain tumour to investigate, since it doesn't have a strong focus, as some other cancers do and the gold particles assist us in finding the areas which need targeting."

Across campus in the Division of Biological Engineering, Dr Andreas Fouras (MEngSc (Research) 1999)has been at Monash for 12 years and is preparing to embark on a new era of research possibilities.

Velocimetry - the measurement of how fast things move - is Dr Fouras' area of research, with the potential to significantly improve medical imaging of organs such as the lungs.

"We have recently built a facility to mimic imaging conditions at the synchrotron. We have been developing and testing a new technique that we hope will lead to a breakthrough in how CT scans are performed, so you get information about how the blood is flowing, as well as the shape of your internal organs," he said.

"My research is in improving existing techniques and developing new imaging based velocimetry techniques with a focus on improving dimensionality of those measurements. It is all very technical, but, for example, how do we achieve 3-D from 2-D imaging and therefore velocimetry?"

In the School of Physics and the Department of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sceinces, Dr Karen Siu (BSc 1998, BSc (Hons) 1999, PhD 2003) is investigating new imaging methods suited to a range of common airway diseases such as asthma, cystic fibrosis, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which are characterised by airway inflammation and abnormal mucous production or retention that compromises respiratory function and impairs the lung defences against infection.

Although symptomatic and curative therapies are the subject of extensive research, there is no direct method for the non invasive examination of airways at sufficiently high resolution and in a timely fashion, to monitor and quickly assess treatment efficacy.

"In collaboration with Dr David Parsons of the Women's and children's Hospital, Adelaide, we are actively investigating advances in Phase Contrast X-ray Imaging (PCXI) to develop new means of assessing treatments for cystic fibrosis in particular. PCXI has the ability to image soft tissues with startling clarity, and it is ideally suited to direct and rapid study of the physiological changes in airways due to disease," Dr Siu said.

"Most basic research does have its eye on an end goal - in this case developing new diagnostic methods. Research infrastructure such as the Australian Synchrotron will enable us to test new techniques that may one day be translated into clinical practice."

The Australian Synchrotron: 1. Electron Gun - fires the electrons 2. Linear Accelerator (Linac) - accelerates the electrons to 99.9987% of the speed of light 3. Booster Ring - increases the energy of the electrons 4. Storage Ring - circulates the electrons and creates light 5. Beamline - captures and modifies the light 6. End Station (Laboratory) - where the experiment is conducted

Also with the School of Physics is Monash Centre for Synchrotron Science Research Fellow Dr Konstantin Pavlov, whose research is focussed on the physical optics of x-rays and electrons. He has developed several new approaches which can be applied to medical and biological imaging and materials science.

One of the major current uses of synchrotron radiation is for the determination of three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules.

Associate Professor Matthew Wilce is a National Health and Medical Research Council Senior Research Fellow with the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He and over 60 other researchers in this Department will be utilising the protein beamlines of the Australian Synchrotron as a core tool to support their research.

This research includes the investigation of the molecular basis of disease and the development of pharmaceuticals, protein engineering for the purposes of bioremediation and the molecular mechanisms of fundamental biological processes.

As well as capturing the expertise of researchers at The Monash Centre for Synchrotron Science, the Australian Synchrotron is also attracting scientists from overseas.

Twenty-five year-old Swiss student Evelyne Meier has spent several months engaged in intensive research to complete a Masters of Sciences in Physics through Monash University and the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland.

Associate Director of the Centre for Synchrotron Science, Dr John McDougall said Ms Meier's visit to Monash and the Australian Synchrotron is recognition that Monash University has become a sought-after research destination for scientists from around the world.

"We are happy to play our part in encouraging this international interchange, particularly when it involves young researchers," Dr McDougall said.

A new and exciting era in Australian and international research will begin when the Australian Synchrotron officially opens its doors later this year. For the team of researchers and support staff at the Monash Centre for Synchrotron Science, the future is looking bright.

Dr Lewis is optimistic about the scientific potential about to be realised. "Our team hopes to make a significant contribution to science and medicine," he said, "a contribution that will directly influence the quality of people's lives, health and longevity ... and the Australian Synchrotron will be the machine that enables us to try."