Research
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For only the fourth time in its 60-plus year history, Ames Laboratory has a new director. Alex King became the director of the Ames Laboratory on Jan. 1, 2008, coming to Ames from Purdue University where he was head of the School of Materials Engineering from 1999 to 2007. As a materials scientist, King was previously aware of some of the research taking place at Ames Laboratory, but has been pleasantly surprised by what he's found since taking over the helm. "There is certainly a good dose of 'Midwestern modesty' here, and a lot of the work is undersold, but I am finding exciting research and exceptional scientific quality in every corner of the Lab," King said. "The more people I talk to, the more great science I find." King has been especially impressed with the collaborative environment that exists at Ames Laboratory and the relationship with Iowa State University, which holds the Lab's operational contract. "Ames Laboratory has a great working climate in which novel ideas are conceived in fundamental science, tested in theoretical and modeling studies, formed into actual materials that you can hold in your hand, and then measured with high sophistication to prove the original concept," he said. "You cannot easily find all of those things working together as well as they do at Ames." King succeeds Tom Barton, who served as Ames Laboratory director for 19 years. Prior to his eight-years at Purdue, King was at the State University of New York at Stony Brook for eight years, serving as Vice Provost for Graduate Studies from 1987 to 1992. He holds a B.Met. in physical metallurgy from the University of Sheffield, England, and a D.Phil. in metallurgy and the science of materials from the University of Oxford. King is a fellow of the American Society of Materials and the Institute of Materials of the United Kingdom. He was a visiting fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science in 1996 and a Jefferson Science fellow in the U.S. Department of State from 2005 to 2006.Submitted by DOE's Ames Laboratory |
Check out the joint Fermilab/SLAC publication symmetry.
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Double whammy for breast cancer
DOE’s Jefferson Lab and the University of Virginia have redoubled efforts to catch breast cancer in its earliest stages. Researchers are developing and testing a two-headed compact gamma camera system. Breast cancer strikes more women in the U.S. than any other cancer, killing more than 40,000 women each year. The first line of defense is to spot it early. While mammography is the primary method of breast cancer screening, the Dilon 6800 Gamma Camera has saved women’s lives by revealing cancers not seen on mammograms. The Dilon system is based on technologies originally developed by Jefferson Lab’s Radiation Detector and Medical Imaging Group. It uses breast-specific gamma imaging. In this method, a radiopharmaceutical is injected into the body, where it accumulates in cancer cells. The drug contains a radioactive agent that releases gamma rays, which are imaged by the gamma camera, thus revealing the hidden cancer. The system uses one gamma camera. Now scientists are testing whether two gamma cameras, each similar to the Dilon 6800’s single camera, can spot cancer better than one. Patty Judy, a graduate student at the University of Virginia, presented the results of early preclinical tests of the two-camera system at the 2007 IEEE Medical Imaging Conference. “What we wanted to look at was would we get better detection of lesions, especially small lesions, in all regions of the breast with that setup.” With assistance from Dilon, the researchers imaged breast phantoms, plastic and gel mockups of the breast with an embedded radioactive agent to simulate cancer. They found that the system, which combines information from both cameras, imaged the lesions better than each camera alone. “The resolution is better than any of the individual camera's resolution at any depth. So in most cases, you're going to do better with a multiplied image,” Judy concludes. As for its effectiveness in spotting cancer in patients, initial results of clinical trials confirm the conclusions from the phantom tests.Submitted by DOE's Jefferson Lab |
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