Story ideas from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (November, 1997)
To arrange for an interview with any of these researchers, please call Ron Walli of Communications and Public Affairs (423) 576-0226
MEDICINE -- Targeting tumors
Patient studies using the byproduct of nuclear waste processing at ORNL are giving doctors at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center hope for treating lung tumors. Doctors successfully used bismuth-213, a second-generation byproduct of uranium-233, in treating patients with leukemia. They're hopeful of similar successes eradicating tumors, which are more difficult to treat because the blood vessel wall limits the amount of antibody that binds to the tumor cells. The new approach -- tested with mice at ORNL -- involves attaching bismuth-213 to an antibody that homes in on the tumor blood vessels directly instead of having to penetrate the vessel wall. [Contact: Steve Kennel, (423) 574-0825]
MILITARY -- M.A.S.H. of tomorrow
Lives of up to 25 percent of the soldiers who now die from combat wounds within an hour of being injured would be saved with the "hospital in a box," recently built at Department of Energy Oak Ridge facilities. The portable hospital -- known as the Advanced Surgical Suite for Trauma Casualties -- can be carried in a sling beneath a helicopter or inside a plane. The unit fits inside a 5x5x10-foot box and can be transformed into a fully equipped operating room in less than 30 minutes. The hospital was developed by the U.S. Army along with San Jose State University. The prototype was built at the Oak Ridge Centers for Manufacturing Technology, a Y-12 Plant and ORNL collaboration. [Contact: Bill Wilburn, (423) 241-4937]
ENERGY -- Partners in fusion
Fusion devices once used at Oak Ridge National Laboratory will power fusion experiments in Britain and Spain. Lab engineers are preparing two neutral-beam injectors for shipment to the UK's Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST), an experimental magnetic confinement fusion device at the UK's Atomic Energy Agency-Culham Fusion Laboratory. Two other injectors are bound for CIEMAT in Madrid, Spain, where researchers are conducting similar experiments at the TJ-II facility. The neutral beam injectors shoot high-energy hydrogen atoms into a magnetically confined plasma in order to heat the plasma to temperatures that promote fusion reactions. [Contact: Stan Milora, (423) 574-3681]
OAK RIDGE G-MEN
Hundreds of years after the infamous apple landed on Newton's head, scientists still don't know very much about gravity, the G force. By contrast, the other three known forces in the universe -- strong, weak and electromagnetic -- are much better understood. Scientists at ORNL, NASA, the Russian Gravitational Society and the University of Tennessee are collaborating to build an elegant test of some of gravity's least-known effects. Dubbed the Satellite Energy Exchange project, or SEE, the researchers propose to launch an orbiting experiment into near-polar orbit early in the next century to test long-held but umproven theories about how gravity works and how it interacts with the other forces in the universe. According to the University of Tennessee's Al Sanders, "Until we can tie down gravity, we can't unify it to the other forces. This project will improve our knowledge of the universe." [ORNL Contact: Steve Allison, (423) 576-2725].
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