Grant for science news service

AlphaGalileo is a free Internet-based press centre for European science, engineering and technology. It enables the research results from universities and public and private research organisations to be easily accessible to the world’s press. AlphaGalileo has now received a grant of 787,000 Euros from the EU to continue and expand its work. As a result of the grant, AlphaGalileo is to become available in six languages. Currently, it can be viewed in English, French and German, and Finnish, Greek and Portugese are to be added.

AlphaGalileo offers scientists an easy way to spread news of their work to a wider community, and you, or your press office, might like to consider supplying information to the AlphaGalileo service: www.alphagalileo.org.

Materials characterisation centre

Loughborough University’s new materials characterisation centre [Loughborough Materials Characterisation Centre (LMCC)] has been opened. It is located in the Institute of Polymer Technology and Materials Engineering and will provide the University, local, national and international industrial clients with state-of-the-art facilities in four areas in which it boasts international expertise. Each of LMCC’s four Units—the Institute of Surface Science and Technology, the Advanced Thermal Methods Unit, the Electron and Optical Microscopy Unit and the X-ray Unit—is headed by a technical director, with Professor Doug Hourston as overall director.

Techniques available in the Institute of Surface Science and Technology include a wide range of surface analysis techniques including SIMS, Auger and XPS for the study of contamination on surfaces, detailed composition of metals and other surfaces, adhesion, and investigation of causes of failure in materials.

The X-ray Unit has new WAXS and SAXS instruments for the analysis of crystal structures, orientation in polymers and structures on the nanometre scale.

The LMCC welcomes approaches from industry for analytical services and collaborative research. d.j.hourston@lboro.ac.uk.

Congratulations Tony!

Tony (A.N.) Davies, one of the two Editors of the Tony Davies Column in Spectroscopy Europe, has been appointed External Professor at the University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd, UK. The appointment follows a number of years collaboration in the areas of food quality control, electronic data and spectroscopic data standards.

NMR facility

A purpose-built applications laboratory housing a fully-operational 900 MHz NMR magnet has been opened at Eynsham, near Oxford, UK. The official opening was performed by Professor Iain Campbell from the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Oxford on 24 May 2001. The facility is run jointly by Oxford Instruments and Varian, and also houses 500 and 600 MHz NMR spectrometer systems. Customers will be able to observe instrument demonstrations, conduct their own NMR experiments and work on scientific collaborations. Oxford Instruments and Varian will use the laboratory for testing new NMR theories and techniques and for developing new superconducting magnets, RF consoles and NMR probes.

Sir Martin Wood (left) of Oxford Instruments and Professor Iain Campbell of Oxford University opeing the NMR applications laboratory.

NMR users meeting

JEOL UK Ltd recently held a successful NMR users meeting at Oxford Instruments Superconductivity (UK). The meeting attracted a varied audience with an attractive programme of presentations including the Oxford Instruments 900 MHz super-conducting magnet programme. The forum included topics covering molecular biology, polymers and latest news from JEOL. This type of annual meeting gives the company and its users an opportunity to exchange information and can provide valuable feedback for product development. www.jeoleuro.com.

HUPO President

The Human Proteome Organisation (HUPO) [see Spectroscopy Europe 13(2), 6 (2001)] has elected its Inaugural President, Dr Sam Hanash. Dr Hanash is a pioneer in cancer proteomics. He is professor of Medicine at the University of Michigan. He has contributed to numerous aspects of proteomics, from technology development, construction of databases of protein expression and integration of genomic and proteomic data, to clinical applications of proteomics. He heads a large academic research group that is focusing on the application of cancer proteomics to disease classification, the discovery of novel therapeutic targets and of novel biomarkers for the early diagnosis of cancer. www.hupo.org.

Pirelli Award

Registration is now officially open for the VI Edition of the Pirelli INTERNETional Award 2001. This year, the overall prize has increased to 80,000Euros. The award is an international competition for the spread of scientific and technological culture via multimedia work. More information is available at the award’s website: www.pirelliaward.com.