Kirkbright Bursary 2006

The prestigious Gordon F. Kirkbright Bursary enables a promising non-tenured young scientist of any nation to attend a recognised scientific meeting or visit a place of learning. The fund for the bursary was established in 1985 as a memorial to Professor Gordon Kirkbright in recognition of his contributions to analytical spectroscopy and to science in general. The fund is administered by the Association of British Spectroscopists (ABS) Trust.

Applications for the 2006 Gordon Kirkbright Bursary are invited. The award is not restricted to spectroscopists. The closing date for entries is 1 March 2006. For further information, contact John Chalmers, VS Consulting, 14 Croft Hills, Tame Bridge, Stokesley, UK, Fax: +44-1642-714306, vibspecconsult@aol.com

Proteomics database

The European Bioinformatics Institute and Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology (VIB) of Ghent University have launched the Proteomics IDEntifications database (PRIDE). This enables proteomics researchers to share information more readily. According to Henning Hermjakob, leader of the EBI’s Proteomics Services Team, “Proteomics labs were publishing their own identifications, but they had no guidelines as what information should be captured or how the information should be formatted. The proteomics community rapidly realised that researchers would only be able to exploit the results of their endeavours if they had a central repository that would allow them to make their results publicly available using agreed data standards.”

Large sets of data already available in PRIDE include the results of the Human Proteome Organisation’s Plasma Proteome Project and a human platelet proteome set published by Ghent University. PRIDE is completely open source: the database, source code, data and support tools are freely available for web access or download and local installation. www.ebi.ac.uk/pride

IR spectroscopy detects contaminated meat

Research presented by Dr David Ellis of the University of Manchester at the 157th meeting of the Society for General Microbiology at Keele University, UK, showed that infrared spectroscopy can be used to detect chicken and beef contaminated with bacteria. Whilst modern food processing is highly automated, inspection of the food is not and detection of bacteria can take at least several hours. The IR technique can be incorporated into production lines and provide detection online. It is hoped that the method can be extended to other food products such as milk, ice cream, cheese and other dairy products, fruit juices and other foods. www.biospec.net

Magnetic resonance with the Earth’s field

Researchers at the Research Centre Jülich and the RWTH Aachen University of Technology in Germany have shown that it is possible to use the Earth’s magnetic field to perform magnetic resonance measurements. They have demonstrated that high-resolution Xe NMR can be carried out using just the Earth’s magnetic field.

A wide and diverse range of applications may be possible. As well as chemical analyses outdoors and in areas where it would be impossible to utilise conventional magnets, a number of geophysical analyses are possible. Dr Stephan Appelt from the Research Centre Jülich suggests that the Earth’s magnetic field could be surveyed with great precision and that it may be possible to gain a better understanding of earthquake risks along local fault lines, or of volcanism. Another application, in astrophysics, could be the measurement of the solar wind, which is deviated by the Earth’s magnetic field.

NMR experiments in the open air using the Earth’s magnetic field.

Finally, xenon-containing contrast media, inhaled or injected, could be used to obtain MRI scans on patients without the need for large and expensive magnets. dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.94.197602