Star Phoenix – Canadian Light Source Synchrotron seeks funding ;
These include a proposal for a nanostructure facility, a crystallography beamline and — of most interest to those who would like Saskatoon to become a Mayo Centre of the north — a biomedical imaging and therapy centre.
If the latter is approved, Canada will have only the second synchrotron in the world capable of not only conducting medical research but also radiation therapy research.
Because the CLS exists on a university campus with medical, veterinary and engineering colleges, it provides unprecedented opportunity for this sort of high-end research, according to the application.
It was just this convergence that helped convince Thomlinson to leave France, where he led a team working on the only synchrotron that currently has the ability to conduct radiation treatment research.
Nano science has been called the next critical leap in human technology.
This beamline could be used to advance research in a wide variety of fields, including wireless and optical telecom, aerospace, sensing, microfluids and biomedicine.
Scientists have suggested nanotechnology could eventually be used to detect and treat illnesses more rapidly and efficiently, build materials that clean themselves or create environments that adapt themselves to human needs.
The crystallography beamline would be used to examine the atomic structure of macromolecules such as proteins.
Wheat, gophers, grasshoppers, prairie, cowboys, hockey , blizzards, synchrotrons, nanotech – all part of the Saskatchewan stereotype.