Facts and Figures

The campus has been home to the Daresbury Laboratory, a world-class centre for accelerator science, for over four decades. In 2005, the Cockcroft Institute and the Daresbury Innovation Centre were built alongside it, as part of a government drive to encourage more commercially viable scientific research and knowledge exchange.

As part of this initiative, Daresbury, and its sister site at Harwell in Oxfordshire, gained the title of Science & Innovation Campus. This major step forward was enabled by the laboratory’s existing critical mass of scientific expertise and unique technological competencies.

Some Interesting Facts about Daresbury Science & Innovation Campus:

Staff at Daresbury SIC designed and built the word’s fastest 2D x-ray detector - the Rapid System. It is used on the synchrotron radiation system (SRS) and other synchrotrons worldwide.

• Daresbury staff designed and built the world’s first dedicated high energy synchrotron light source, the SRS.
  Synchrotron light has become a key tool for modern research and is used in many areas of scientific and engineering investigations. There are over 60 synchrotrons around the world. They have all followed the lead of Daresbury Laboratory, where the first such machine opened in 1980.
• The world’s highest energy ion beam accelerator was designed and built at Daresbury Laboratory.The Nuclear Structure Facility was a tandem Van der Graaff accelerator which used intense ion beams to help reveal the properties of the atomic nucleus under extreme conditions.
• The next generation of accelerator technology is being designed at Daresbury Laboratory.
  Current research at Daresbury will revolutionise the way accelerator light sources are designed and open up new ways to study atoms and molecules on the vanishingly small timescales at which they change and react.
•  The structure of the foot and mouth disease virus was solved using the SRS by a team from Oxford University in 1990.
  The atomic level information they obtained was crucial in developing effective vaccines against foot and mouth disease and is paving the way for new treatments.
• The structure of the F1ATPase enzyme was solved using the SRS by Sir John Walker, work which earned him a share of the 1997 Nobel prize in chemistry.
  The F1ATPase enzyme makes the fuel that powers biochemistry in every living thing. Its structure The membrane-bound enzyme is curious, having a rotating central shaft that changes the conformation of the active sites of the enzyme. Understanding how it works is bringing new insight into metabolic disease.
• Studies of giant magnetoresistance on the SRS have played a key role in the development of new electronic memory devices that use spintronics, a new form of electronics that uses the spin of particles to record information.This is used in devices such as the iPod, helping you fit more music into them.
• Zeolite molecules, one of the key ingredients in modern washing powders were developed by a company using the power of the SRS to resolve molecular structures.
  Zeolite molecules are like molecular sponges and the ones in detergent. The holes in the molecular sponge are filled with detergent which is released when the zeolite added to the water in a washing machine. The holes then suck calcium ions from the water to soften it in a way. This gives compact effective detergents with minimum environmental impact.
• Daresbury Laboratory was the first place in the world to operate a service for companies to access the power of its unique synchrotron and computational facilities.
  The DARTS service allowed everyone from SMEs to blue chip multinationals to use the Laboratory’s facilities and the expertise of its staff to develop better processes and products.
• Each year, over 3,000 members of the public come to the Laboratory to hear about the latest developments in science and technology and see the Laboratory’s world-leading facilities.The Laboratory leads the public outreach programme for Daresbury SICA similar number of school pupils are also inspired to follow their interest in science by taking part in programmes and activities either at the Laboratory or led by the Laboratory in their school.