Monash Centre for Synchrotron Science video

Description:
A title: Monash University, Monash Centre for Synchrotron Science
Professor Rob Lewis, Director, Monash Centre for Synchrotron Science

Professor Rob Lewis: "The synchrotron allows us to use a technique called x-ray face contrast which allows us to see things that we can't see any other way"

Description: Two x-ray images of an animal.

Professor Rob Lewis: "On these two pictures you can see the one on the left is the kind of picture that you would get if you used an ordinary x-ray set. The picture on the right is the kind of picture that we get when we use the synchrotron and you can see that the level of detail is much, much better on the synchrotron picture.

"Of course while having excellent pictures is one thing, what you really want to see if you want to see air going into the lungs is you want to take movies and the great thing about the synchrotron is that it's so bright that we can take really fantastic movies."

Description: Movie of air going into lungs of animal.

Professor Rob Lewis: "And this movie is showing the air going into the lungs of an animal that's under artificial ventilation and this has never been possible to see this before. You can actually see the individual airways filling in and if we switch to the zoomed in view..."

Description: Close up of air going into lungs of animal.

Professor Rob Lewis: "...you can actually see each individual airway as the air comes in and you can actually see the liquid just creep back a bit and a bit more air go in and the lung inflate. In this movie..."

Description: Different vision of air going into lungs of animal.

Professor Rob Lewis: "...we're looking at the ventilation strategy that's currently used in most hospitals in the world when a baby is born prematurely and needs to go on a ventilator. And what you can see here is that the air goes into the major airways of the lung but doesn't go any further and then immediately leaves the lung again and the lung collapses. And what that means is that the baby is not getting the benefit of the air and it's not breathing properly."

Professor Rob Lewis: "If you apply a strategy that has been developed at the Children's Hospital, called P.E.E.P. what you can see in this movie is..."

Description: Different vision of air going into lungs of animal.

Professor Rob Lewis: "...that the lung is now inflating and the air goes in and stays there and this is a remarkably powerful technique for improving the ventilation of newborn infants."

Description: Professor Rob Lewis

Professor Rob Lewis: "Having a facility like this in Melbourne means that we will be able to look at things that we've never been able to see before and because of that, hopefully it means that we'll be able to solve problems that we've never been able to solve before and clearly this should have an impact on the study of lung diseases and treatment..."

Description: Silhouette of doctor listening to patient's heart with a stethoscope.

Professor Rob Lewis: "...of lung problems right throughout the country."

Description:
A title: Monash University, Monash Centre for Synchrotron Science, www.sync.monash.edu.au.

Video ends.