Industry News
STFC: Engineers used to designing state of the art instruments for ground & space based telescopes are now applying their expertise to the development of a diagnostic test for the developed world’s most common form of sight loss in adults, Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD).
AMD leads to the loss of the vision used when looking at something directly ahead, at another person for example, or when reading or watching television. In the UK alone, by 2020 the number of AMD sufferers is expected to rise to 750,000.
Engineers at the UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UK ATC), part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) normally design & make instruments to detect faint light from distant stars & galaxies.
They are also currently collaborating with scientists from Cardiff University’s School of Optometry and Vision Sciences to develop a unique instrument, a ‘retinal densitometer’, which can pick up the earliest stages of AMD by measuring, in the minutest of detail, how the eye responds to light.
They are also currently collaborating with scientists from Cardiff University’s School of Optometry and Vision Sciences to develop a unique instrument, a ‘retinal densitometer’, which can pick up the earliest stages of AMD by measuring, in the minutest of detail, how the eye responds to light.
STFC: Scientists working to design advanced medicines (at Heptares Therapeutics, an MRC spin out company) that are perfectly targeted to control the body’s natural receptors have made a major discovery.
For the first time, they have been able to visualise & study the structure of CRF1, the protein receptor in the brain which controls our response to stress, using the intense synchrotron light produced at the Science & Technology Facilities Councilfunded Diamond Light Source, the UK’s synchrotron science facility in Oxfordshire.
For the first time, they have been able to visualise & study the structure of CRF1, the protein receptor in the brain which controls our response to stress, using the intense synchrotron light produced at the Science & Technology Facilities Councilfunded Diamond Light Source, the UK’s synchrotron science facility in Oxfordshire.
