DESCARTES SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH PRIZE
EUROPEAN
COMMISSION
6
2000
Co m munit y research
The team
The project was coordinated by Professor Ian Smith of the
School of Chemistry at the University of Birmingham (UK),
along with Dr Ian Sims and Dr Delphine Chastaing from
Birmingham, in co-operation with Dr Bertrand Rowe of
Rennes University (France).
Progress/achievements
Winning the prize
The collaboration between the two groups, which led to
the Descartes Prize award in 2000, was consolidated by
the formation and subsequent successful operation of an
EU Network involving research groups in Gottingen and
Chemnitz (Germany), Perugia (Italy), Meudon (France),
Bordeaux (France) and London (UK), as well as the original
Rennes and Birmingham teams.
The Descartes Prize contributed to continued collaborative
research in a number of ways. Professor Smith went on to
make good progress in his research post-2000 and the funds
provided by the Descartes Prize sustained his team’s joint
scientific activity for several years. In addition, the prize
helped both partners buy or upgrade equipment.
The aim of the network is to better understand chemical reactivity at very low temperatures and provide a database for chemical models of interstellar clouds. Since
winning the prize the researchers have made a number of
scientific advances as well.
years of
The apparatus for low-temperature measurements, previously in Birmingham, is now in Rennes. This firmly establishes Rennes as the world centre for the investigation of
molecular processes at ultra-low temperatures.
Professor Smith received funding from the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) for a
study on the effect of reagent rotational energy on the
rates of fast-low temperature reactions. This work follows
on from his Descartes Prize work and should greatly improve our understanding of this class of reactions and the
effect of temperature on their rates.
Descartes
Prize winners
They obtained extensive data on the result of collisions
between carbon monoxide and helium atoms at temperatures as low as 7°K (-266°C), which is important for our
understanding of the temperatures in interstellar clouds.
The results of this work will be published shortly and further experiments on collisions between the two major
gases in interstellar clouds – carbon monoxide and hydrogen – are being undertaken.
In addition, the two original partners were the first to
measure the reaction between oxygen atoms and hydroxyl
radicals. This is groundbreaking research because of the
difficulty of conducting experiments on a reaction involving two such unstable species. The researchers have also
measured how carbon and silicon atoms can be transferred
in collisions between their spin-orbit states – a significant
result in terms of the cooling of interstellar clouds.
INFO
Network of Youth Excellence by Peter Csermely
SUCCESS STORIES
Excellence in scientific collaborative research
and science communication
Category
Innovative action for science communication
Contact Information
Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary
Tel: +36 30 559 4420
Fax: +36 1 222 0517
E-mail
[email protected]
Movement website
www.kutdiak.hu
Network of Youth Excellence Website
www.nyex.info
EUR 22418
1
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Descartes Prizes
The Science and Society programme of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research is responsible
for organising the annual Descartes Prizes: one for collaborative scientific research and one for science communication.
The Commission welcomes the widest possible pool of entrants for these prestigious prizes.
Research prize
Proposals may be submitted by teams of scientists themselves or by public or private organisations,
such as research centres, foundations or universities, which can nominate candidates
for the prize in the following thematic areas:
Basic sciences (physics, chemistry, mathematics)
Earth sciences
Engineering
Information sciences
Life sciences
Socio-economic sciences
Communication prize
Candidatures will be accepted from organisations or individuals who have achieved
outstanding results in science communication. Organisers of science communication prizes may
send their winners as candidates for the EU prize in one of the following categories:
Professional scientists engaged in science communication towards the public
Popularising science through the written word
Popularising science through audiovisual and electronic media
Innovative action for science communication
Editorial policy for the promotion of science whatever the media
Participation guidelines for the Descartes Prizes:
http://ec.europa.eu/research/descartes/index_en.htm
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Directorate-General for Research
Directorate L — Science, Economy and Society
Unit L.4 — Scientific culture and gender issues
E-mail: [email protected]
Contact: Georges Vlandas
European Commission
Office SDME 07/33
B-1049 Brussels
Tel. (32-2) 29-6 55 40
Fax (32-2) 29-9 37 46
E-mail: [email protected]
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Six years of Descartes Prize winners
Excellence in scientific collaborative research
and science communication
2006
Directorate-General for Research
Structuring the European Research Area (Science and society)
EUR 22418
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ISBN 978-92-79-04905-7
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Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged.
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PRINTED ON WHITE CHLORINE-FREE PAPER
INTRODUCTION
Celebrating six years of
Descartes Prize winners
“The importance of communicating science to the general public cannot
be overestimated. Science cannot live isolated from society.”
(Science and Research Commissioner Janez Potočnik)
The Descartes Prizes – which were first awarded in 2000 –
are among the foremost scientific awards at international
level. Each year, 1 150 000 euros is granted to research
teams for demonstrating scientific excellence through
close transnational co-operation, which makes this prize
absolutely unique. Since 2004, due recognition has also
been given to the field of science communication with
awards totalling 275 000 euros shared among scientists,
film makers and specialist communicators.
The Descartes Prize for excellence in
scientific collaborative research
The prestigious Descartes Prize for scientific collaborative
research celebrates, in the spirit of European co-operation,
team efforts, not individual researchers and scientists per se.
Their work is judged on the criteria of scientific excellence
and cross-border co-operation at international level.
The prize is open to those involved in all fields of scientific
endeavour, including the social and economic sciences.
Since its launch in 2000, some 430 submissions have been
received, which have whittled down each year to a selection
of finalists. In its first year alone, hundreds of researchers
vied to win the prestigious prize. By 2003, the number of
competitors for the prize had risen to almost 1 500 scientists.
In 2005, the jury chose five laureates and five finalists from a
highly competitive field of 85 submissions.
“This prize is essential because it is part of the process of
‘Europeanising’ research by encouraging scientists to cooperate more and more effectively,” commented Science and
Research Commissioner Janez Potočnik.
After several successful years, the European Commission,
which organises the annual event, added a new award for
science communication to help promote the understanding
of scientific progress and its implications. This new prize
reflects the Union’s policy aimed at both boosting scientific
culture and supporting the communication of its results.
“The importance of communicating science to the general
public cannot be underestimated. Science cannot live
isolated from society. The public must be able to understand
research results and have an informed opinion on the state
of scientific progress,” noted Mr Potočnik.
This prize – 1 million euros shared between the laureate
teams, and 30 000 euros for each of the five finalist teams
– is awarded for outstanding scientific or technological
results from European collaborative research. It showcases
the best European scientists and shows the advances that
can be made through European co-operation.
Over the six years, 16 projects, involving 104 teams from
24 European and non-European countries, have taken home
the esteemed prize, thus creating a diverse family of Descartes
laureates in countries across the Union and beyond.
The Descartes Prize for excellence in
science communication
This prize for science communication – with five winners
sharing 250 000 euros, and five finalists receiving 5 000 euros
each – recognises and rewards high-quality and accurate
science communication aimed at the general public. In both
2004 and 2005, five leading personalities from the worlds of
science and the media received this award.
Through this prize, the Commission wants to stimulate
scientists and the media to improve the quality of science
communication for a lay audience. Also, the aim is to boost
interest in science which nutures the public debate on
science and encourages people to consider scientific careers.
The competition targets those organisations and individuals
who have won similar competitions in their own countries,
and who have succeeded in making science fun and exciting
for people of all ages.
3
CONTENTS
Hold the science page...
Descartes Scientific Collaborative Research Prize
2000 Towards absolute zero
Chemistry close to absolute zero
Huge strides in understanding cancer and ageing
The XPD gene: one gene, two functions, three diseases
Plastic fantastic
Plastic transistors operating at 50 kHz for low-end high-volume circuits
2001 Stemming the tide
The development of novel drugs against HIV
Helping hands
Development of new asymmetric catalysts for chemical manufacturing
2002 Searching for medical missing links
Autoreactivity in multiple sclerosis: structural, functional and pathological studies
Rising stars
Solving the gamma-ray burst riddle: the universe’s biggest explosions
2003 Bright lights!
Polymer light-emitting diodes for displays
Accurate positioning in a wobbly world
Non-rigid earth nutation model
2004 ‘Power station’ genes for healthy, long lives?
Collaborative research in mitochondrial biogenesis, ageing and disease (MBAD)
Quantum teleportation, a key to secure communications
IST-QuComm – Long-distance photonic quantum communication
2005 Assembling the cold facts about a hot topic
CECA: Climate and environmental changes in the Arctic
Immune system studies promise cures for common diseases
EURO-PID: European initiative on primary immunodeficiencies
Setting new standards for measuring social change
ESS: European social survey – innovations in comparative measurement
Left-handed materials bend the rules of physics
EXEL: Extending electromagnetism through novel artificial materials
Finding the astrophysical Holy Grail: J0737-3039
PULSE: the impact of European pulsar science on modern physics
2006 The Grand Jury
Descartes Research Prize 2006 Grand Jury Members
5
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
26
28
30
32
34
36
38
Descartes Science Communication Prize
2004 David Attenborough’s wild life
Contributions to science by film-maker Sir David Attenborough
‘Into people’s hearts’, one scientist’s inspirational motto
Award for Wolfgang Heckl’s contributions to science education
Hungarian students enter lab life
Peter Csermely’s research student movement and network of youth excellence
Taking composites for a spin round Europe
Ignaas Verpoest’s ‘Composites-on-Tour’ programme
Confronting the phantoms of the insect world
Vincent Lamy’s Face aux phasmes in the TV series C’est pas sorcier
2005 Swedish doctor prescribes a healthy dose of dialogue
Dr Carl Johan Sundberg’s passion for explaining science
Danish scientist brings astrophysics down to Earth
Dr Anja C. Andersen’s discovery journey of the wonders of the cosmos
A big bang in popular science
A short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson
The human narrative behind the science
Jos Van Hemelrijck’s prime time documentary OverLeven
‘Kinder-Uni’ professors
Michael Seifert’s Childrens’ university
4
44
46
48
50
52
54
56
58
60
62
2006 The Expert Panel
Descartes Science Communication Prize 2006 Expert Panel Members
64
René Descartes – To think... is to be
72
Hold the
science page...
The Descartes Prize has received huge media
attention since it was launched in 2000. Every year,
hundreds of printed articles, as well as television
and radio reports, appear on the subject in every
single EU Member State, as well as in countries on
every other continent.
even received a royal mention. On Belgian national
day, 21 July 2006, King Albert II dedicated his speech
to the importance of scientific research and innovation
and called for more young people to study science. The
monarch expressed his happiness with OverLeven’s
Descartes victory.
In 2005, some 100 accredited journalists actually attended
the award ceremony at the Royal Society in London,
and a search for ‘Descartes Prize’ on Google returned
some 375 000 hits. The media across Europe is fond of
describing the Descartes Prize as the “Nobel Prize of
collaborative research”, and one of the “most prestigious”
and “most valuable” scientific prizes around.
Laureates get plenty of coverage in other countries too.
For instance, another Belgian Science Communication
Prize winner, Ignaas Verpoest, and his ‘Compositeson- Tour’ bus received media attention in numerous
European countries, including many of those his travelling
exhibition visited.
In an increasingly application-driven age, the prize
still values the importance of fundamental research.
“The growing hunger of economies for technological
innovation, and the impatience of investors, all too often
causes scientific curiosity to be wrapped in suggestions
of possible applications,” Andrew Moore observed in
EMBO reports. “It was, therefore, a refreshing surprise
for champions of basic research that the 2004 winners
of the Descartes Prize... were scientists with purely
curiosity-driven projects.”
One advantage of the Descartes Prize is the impressive
media coverage it bestows on the laureates and even
the nominees. “Being awarded this prize is an implicit
sign of international scientific recognition,” wrote El
Mundo, Spain’s second largest newspaper.
Such exposure is a true advantage for winners and
nominees alike as it provides them with a great deal of
extra prestige, while drawing attention to their work. “The
Descartes Prize highlights the effectiveness of [European]
fundamental research,” wrote Gilbert Schorsch in
Actualité Chimique, a French chemical journal.
But the European angle is not lost on editors who
recognise the prizes’ power in not only rewarding but
also promoting scientific collaboration. “Co-operation
between EU Member States towards common progress
and development is one of the reasons why the Descartes
Prizes were created,” explained La Voz de Galicia to its
Spanish readers at the end of 2005.
Science for the people
It could also be an inspiration for aspiring scientists.
“Austrian politicians hailed the awarding of the
Descartes Prize as an ‘incentive for many other
scientists’,” reported Austria’s Der Standard.
One of the aims of the Descartes Prizes is to bridge the gap
between the scientific community and society at large,
notably by showing that science can be more tangible
and less mystifying than commonly thought – and some
laureates certainly know how to do that.
Pride of the nation
In 2004, the eye-catching appearance of Descartes
laureate Howard Trevor Jacobs sparked the imagination
of headline writers across the UK.
In the European Union, national coverage tends to
focus on nominees or winners from that country as a
hook to introduce the Descartes Prize. For instance, at
least two dozen articles on Anja C. Andersen, a science
communication prize winner in 2005, appeared in
Danish newspapers.
OverLeven, a Belgian science documentary series and
winner of a Descartes communication prize in 2005,
“It is the latest kit for any self-respecting world-ranking
scientist: Ramones T-shirt, kilt, bovver boots, leather
jacket, ear studs, shaven head, Tintin tuft and optional
wrap-round shades,” wrote the science editor of The
Guardian, the UK’s leading liberal newspaper, who referred
to the Descartes Prize as “one of the most prestigious and
valuable awards in science”.
5
CHEMISTRY CLOSE TO ABSOLUTE ZERO
Towards
absolute zero
An ambitious project, led by Professor Ian Smith in Birmingham and
Dr Bertrand Rowe in Rennes, set about pioneering the study of chemical
reactions to extremely low temperatures.
The scientists broke ground developing new methods for
studying the kinetics of gas-phase chemical reactions
at temperatures just a few degrees above absolute zero
(-273°C).
They found that, at these temperatures, many reactions
between simple molecules and ions proceed with
unexpected speed. A lot has been achieved in this
collaboration but much exciting work in low-temperature
chemistry lies ahead!
The science
Their work has significant implications for our understanding
of the chemistry of huge astronomical aggregates of
molecules and dust found in deep space, and known as
‘interstellar clouds’.
Interstellar cloud is the generic name given to accumulations
of gas and dust in our galaxy. Stars are almost always found
in collections called galaxies, together with gas, dust, and
dark matter – from 10 to 20% of a galaxy is made up of
stars, gas, and dust.
The duo’s research findings are important for our
understanding of how molecules form in space and the
chemical reactions that take place in interstellar clouds.
These conclusions will help astronomers gain insight into
the process by which stars collapse and form.
6
A rich variety of molecular processes were studied in the
unique facilities in Birmingham and Rennes, especially
many reactions between electrically charged ions and
molecules and between electrically neutral radicals and
molecules. The results set theoreticians a real challenge.
What factors control the rates of these rapid reactions that
go even faster as the temperature is lowered?
Because of their fundamental significance, the findings
have generated much interest and excitement. However,
their importance extends further: they have had a major
impact on the understanding of how molecules might
form in the deep recesses of space. About 120 molecules
have now been identified in huge astronomical aggregates
(interstellar clouds) where the molecules are found in
close association with particulate matter, or ‘interstellar
dust‘. The temperature and densities are extremely low in
these clouds and scientists are fascinated by the chemical
mechanisms that create the molecules.
In addition, interstellar clouds are the birthplace of stars,
as dust and molecules are pulled together by gravity. The
Birmingham-Rennes work has shown that a rich chemistry
occurs in interstellar clouds and provides – directly and
indirectly – information on what appropriate chemical
models should be constructed.
DESCARTES SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH PRIZE
2000
The team
The project was coordinated by Professor Ian Smith of the
School of Chemistry at the University of Birmingham (UK),
along with Dr Ian Sims and Dr Delphine Chastaing from
Birmingham, in co-operation with Dr Bertrand Rowe of
Rennes University (France).
Progress/achievements
Winning the prize
The collaboration between the two groups, which led to
the Descartes Prize award in 2000, was consolidated by
the formation and subsequent successful operation of an
EU Network involving research groups in Gottingen and
Chemnitz (Germany), Perugia (Italy), Meudon (France),
Bordeaux (France) and London (UK), as well as the original
Rennes and Birmingham teams
The Descartes Prize contributed to continued collaborative
research in a number of ways. Professor Smith went on to
make good progress in his research post-2000 and the funds
provided by the Descartes Prize sustained his team’s joint
scientific activity for several years. In addition, the prize
helped both partners buy or upgrade equipment.
The aim of the network is to better understand chemical
reactivity at very low temperatures and provide a database
for chemical models of interstellar clouds. Since winning
the prize the researchers have made a number of scientific
advances as well. They extended their experiments to a
wider range of chemical compounds, with a particular
focus on carbon chemistry.
They obtained extensive data on the result of collisions
between carbon monoxide and helium atoms at
temperatures as low as 7°K (-266°C), which is important
for our understanding of the temperatures in interstellar
clouds. The results of this work will be published shortly
and further experiments on collisions between the two
major gases in interstellar clouds – carbon monoxide and
hydrogen – are being undertaken.
In addition, the two original partners were the first to
measure the reaction between oxygen atoms and hydroxyl
radicals. This is groundbreaking research because of the
difficulty of conducting experiments on a reaction involving
two such unstable species. The researchers have also
measured how carbon and silicon atoms can be transferred
in collisions between their spin-orbit states – a significant
result in terms of the cooling of interstellar clouds.
The apparatus for low-temperature measurements,
previously in Birmingham, is now in Rennes. This firmly
establishes Rennes as the world centre for the investigation
of molecular processes at ultra-low temperatures.
Professor Smith received funding from the UK Engineering
and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) for a study
on the effect of reagent rotational energy on the rates of
fast-low temperature reactions. This work follows on from
his Descartes Prize work and should greatly improve our
understanding of this class of reactions and the effect of
temperature on their rates.
INFO
Chemistry close to absolute zero
Category
Basic Sciences
Led by
School of Chemistry, The University of Birmingham
Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, United Kingdom
Contact information
Emeritus Professor Ian Smith
Tel: +44 (0)1223 767503
E-mail
[email protected]
Website
http://www.chem.bham.ac.uk
7
THE XPD GENE
Huge strides in understanding
cancer and ageing
Over the past decade, a pan-European team coordinated by Professor
Alan Lehmann of Sussex University has been looking at a number of diseases
in which a faulty gene means that the body is unable to repair damage to
its DNA, or genetic material.
The 2000 Descartes Prize winning consortium focused on
just one gene, called XPD, which demonstrates unusual
characteristics. In most cases, a defect in a gene can result
in only one genetic disorder. But the researchers made the
remarkable discovery that not one but three conditions
can result from a faulty XPD gene.
The science
Today, huge strides are being made in medical research into
the very essence of human life – our genes. For the first
time, the completed sequencing of the human genome is
providing a holistic view of our genetic heritage.
There are 46 human chromosomes – 22 pairs of autosomal
chromosomes and two sex chromosomes – with 3 billion
base pairs of DNA containing between 25 000 and 30 000
protein-coding genes. The coding regions make up less
than 5% of the genome (remarkably, the function of the
majority of DNA is still a mystery), and some chromosomes
have a higher density of genes than others.
Most genetic disorders are the direct result of a mutation
in one gene. However, one of the toughest problems ahead
is to find out how genes contribute to diseases that have a
complex pattern of inheritance, as in the cases of cancer or
mental illness. Before you can cure cancer, for example, you
need to understand what cancer is and what causes it.
In some instances, faults in the XPD gene can cause the
rare inherited disorder xeroderma pigmentosum (XP)
which significantly increases the chance of developing
skin cancer. In other cases, the faulty gene is linked to two
quite different diseases: trichothiodystrophy (TTD), which
causes brittle hair and a variety of other symptoms, and
Cockayne Syndrome resulting in severe physical and mental
retardation reminiscent of premature ageing.
8
This was an unexpected discovery because the diseases are
completely different. The breakthrough in explaining how a
single gene could cause three different disorders came with
another surprising finding: that the XPD protein – complex
molecules behind the structure, function and regulation of
the body’s tissues and organs – has not one function, as is
the case with most proteins, but two. It is needed to repair
damage in the DNA caused by sunlight, as well as the quite
different process of transcription – how cells read genetic
information and convert it into proteins.
Although unexpected, the discovery provided a lot of
possible explanations. The researchers suggested that, if
the fault in the XPD gene affects DNA repair, the patient
has XP. But if it alters transcription then TTD or Cockayne
Syndrome will develop. In their next series of experiments,
members of the team were able to show that this was
indeed the case.
Armed with this knowledge, Professor Lehmann and his
Sussex team can now help doctors around the world diagnose
patients by examining their cell tissue. Early diagnosis of
XP, TTD or Cockayne Syndrome – even in the womb – means
that parents have the choice of interrupting the pregnancy
and preventing the birth of a severely affected child or
can make sure children receive the maximum protection
against the sun in order to prevent skin cancer.
The three diseases can only be cured, however, if scientists
can work out how to replace the defective XPD gene in an
efficient and safe manner. Professor Lehmann estimates
that this advance is at least another five or ten years away.
This research has also led to some important developments
in other areas of medical research. In a separate study at
the Keck Institute (USA), a team is investigating variations
in the XPD gene and patient responses to chemotherapy. It
is part of an ongoing movement to understand how cancer
differs from patient to patient, so that oncologists can
customise therapies.
DESCARTES SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH PRIZE
2000
The team
The project was coordinated by Professor Alan Lehmann
of Sussex University in Brighton (UK) in co-operation with
Professor Jan H.J. Hoeijmakers of Erasmus University in
Rotterdam (The Netherlands), Dr Miria Stefanini of Consiglio
Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Genetica Molecolare
(IGM-CNR) in Pavia (Italy), and Professor Jean-Marc Egly
of Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in
Strasbourg (France).
Progress/achievements
Since winning the prize, the consortium has resolved a new
form of one of these diseases called trichothiodystrophy
(TTD) form A, and identified which gene is affected.
Furthermore, the Rotterdam team has successfully
generated transgenic mice in which specific DNA repair
genes are mutated in a way that they show signs of ageing
at different rates.
For instance, instead of the normal life span of two years,
different mutant mice age in 14 months, seven months,
three weeks or even in utero. This discovery is significant
for determining the effects of drugs, foodstuffs or other
agents on the speed of ageing. Depending on whether
they cause damage to DNA or protect the DNA from being
damaged, they may either accelerate or postpone the
ageing process. The research team aims to discover food
components (antioxidants) which will help to prevent
damage to DNA and, in so doing, contribute to the fight
against age-related conditions, such as osteoporosis,
cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
“Work in all our labs is progressing. We are trying to
understand why, in one of the diseases, the incidence of
cancer is very high, whereas in another it is as normal. We
are getting more clues, but as yet no definite answers,”
Professor Lehmann noted.
The team has received funding from various European
Union research programmes, including for three projects in
the current Sixth Framework Programme (the EU funding
scheme for promoting scientific research in key thematic
areas): one Research Training Network (to encourage
research training, especially for young researchers, in
top international projects); and two Integrated Projects
(funding for targeted research where the main deliverable
is knowledge leading to new products, processes, services,
etc.). They have also received a European Science Foundation
award for the analysis of live cells using fluorescentlabelled repair proteins to understand the process of DNA
repair in the living cell.
Finally, the teams have two further EU research applications
under negotiation from recent calls for proposals. The topics
include risk evaluation of toxic components and development
of transgenic mice for different genetic defects in the area
of DNA damage response. These research proposals involve
some or all of the same partners and some new ones. They
have also attracted some interest from small companies in
the private sector.
Winning the prize
The team has benefited greatly from the increase in
scientific standing by winning the prize, not only in Europe
but also throughout the medical world. The award had a
significant impact on the laboratories as it was used for
funding further research.
“Our work represents a major advance in our understanding
of fundamental cellular processes, with impacts on clinical
medicine, cancer prevention and on tackling genetic
diseases and ageing. The Descartes Prize recognises the
importance of research into these debilitating diseases,”
say the scientists.
INFO
The XPD gene
Category
Life Sciences
Led by
MRC Cell Mutation Unit
University of Sussex
Falmer, Brighton BN1 9RR, United Kingdom
Contact information
Professor Alan R Lehmann
Sussex Centre for Genome Damage and Stability
Tel: +44 (0)1273 678120
E-mail
[email protected]
Website
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/gdsc/profile19651.html
9
PLASTIC TRANSISTORS
Plastic fantastic
The prize winning research teams combined their academic and industrial
skills to study carbon-based compounds – popularly called plastic or organic
transistors – to make integrated electronic circuits that may some day
complement silicon-based devices in special applications.
They were the first to show that polymer transistors could be
manufactured on flexible surfaces so that they keep working
even when folded in half. Not satisfied with this breakthrough
the team also developed, later in Plastronix, the world’s first
electronic display in which each pixel was driven by a thinfilm transistor based on a polymer semiconductor.
This represents an important step towards the realisation
of low-cost all-polymer displays with a high contrast and
wide viewing angle – it may even allow flexible displays to
be manufactured (see www.polymervision.com). Standard
silicon technology is made from sand as a raw material
and is expensive, whereas polymers are generally easier to
process and more cost effective.
You might wonder how plastic can carry the electric
currents that make a circuit work. Most people think
of plastic as an insulator, not a material that conducts
electricity very well. But in fact all materials conduct
some electricity and many applications do not require a
material that conducts as well as copper wire, for instance.
Although plastic lacks some of the benefits of the best
conductors, it provides other advantages, such as ease of
manufacturing. Advances in electronics, especially in the
field of integrated circuits, are often driven by the need to
find new manufacturing techniques.
The manufacturing of conventional integrated circuits is
expensive because it needs high-energy or high-vacuum
processes, not to mention pristine conditions. This relatively
new approach to electronics relies on much simpler
production techniques, which resemble printing processes.
In this innovative manufacturing process, a transistor is
built in much the same way as making a sandwich – layer
upon layer – and without any high-energy or high-vacuum
steps. These silk-screening-like steps lead to extremely
cheap transistors. Some even suggest we may end up with
disposable technology.
10
The science
The winning Descartes team managed to replace the silicon
with plastic transistors, which are flexible and also cheaper
to make. One of the problems with this method is that
plastic conducts electricity more slowly than silicon, but in
this case it is still fast enough for most electronic appliances.
By using plastic instead of silicon, the transistors are also
more compatible with manufacturing processes that use
other plastics.
Transistors are fairly simple components (they are either on
or off) which means a single pixel is either black or white.
But team coordinator Dago de Leeuw and his team at the
Philips Research Laboratories created an innovative plastic
transistor that can control 256 corresponding shades of
grey. This greater level of sophistication produces a much
more accurate result.
In Plastronix, using the new type of transistor, the
researchers created a 10 cm polymer dispersed liquidcrystal display. It measures 64 pixels by 64 pixels and can
form an image using the 256 shades of grey. It can also
be refreshed at the same speed as a video display. The
current prototype used to test the plastic transistors was
mounted on glass. The next step is to use plastic rather
than glass to create a flexible display that would be robust
and lightweight.
This field of research is highly competitive and the European
team is not the only group experimenting with plastic
transistors. The field also includes heavyweights such
as Lucent and IBM. Similarly, Gyricon Media, a spin-off
company of Xerox, is developing ‘Smart Paper’ with built-in
display technology.
DESCARTES SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH PRIZE
2000
The team
Progress/achievements
Dr Dago de Leeuw of Philips Research Laboratories in
The Netherlands, with assistance from Dr B.H. Huisman
and Dr P.T. Herwig of Philips, and in co-operation with Dr
R. Janssen, Dr B. Langeveld-Voss and Ms A.J.H. Spiering of
Eindhoven University of Technology, Professor Dr P. Bäurle,
Dr E. Mena-Osterlitz and Dr G. Götz of the Universität of
Ulm (Germany), Dr P.J. Brown, and Dr H. Sirringhaus of
the University of Cambridge (UK) and Dr M.M. Nielsen and
Professor Dr K. Bechgaard of the Risø National Laboratory
(Denmark), are leading the field in a very competitive race.
Researchers previously linked to the Descartes Prize winning
team have gone on to develop a disposable identification tag
that can be incorporated into the wrapping of a package.
The device also leads the way in linking large numbers of
all-plastic transistors into circuits. This 326-transistor device
can be bent in half and will still work properly.
Others formed an EU Fifth Framework Programme project,
called Plastronix, which ran successfully for two years from
2000 to 2001 and resulted in several patent applications.
Winning the prize
But e-paper is not the only application for the strong, flexible
and lightweight electronic displays. Other applications for
this technology range from electronic bar code devices for
identification (e.g. airport luggage or in supermarkets), to
flexible displays for mobile phones or car dashboards. In
addition to being highly flexible and lightweight, plastic
transistors can reduce production costs.
Winnings from the Descartes Prize were pumped into
research aimed at optimising this revolutionary technology
for use in more sophisticated devices, such as small memory
devices and active-matrix displays. The research teams
have made great strides in other projects, improving the
switching speed and processing time.
The applications
Several teams are working on further improvements to this
technology to get the same uniformity of performance over
an even larger area, which would pave the way for a lowcost production process for large sheets of electronic paper.
So what does this mean in practical terms for consumers?
One of the most exciting possibilities of this research is the
revolutionary prospect of an almost paperless world. In the
future, researchers predict the demise of the paperback
novel and morning paper in favour of electronic paper or so
called ‘e-paper’. The goal is to create an electronic display
on a material that has the look and flexibility of paper but,
unlike paper, can be both amended and reused.
We could eventually be downloading our morning newspaper
or the latest bestseller on to a single sheet of electronic
paper. Scientists predict that early versions of e-paper could
be available within the next five years. The main difficulty
in developing e-paper has been that the circuit boards that
direct the ‘electronic ink’ have not been flexible enough.
Silicon transistors are basically tiny switches that control
the colour of each pixel (the tiny square units that make
up the image on a computer screen). The transistors are
layers of metals and insulators that must be laid down on
a flat surface, producing a rigid display.
So, to achieve the perfect flexible display, a transistor needs
to be placed behind each pixel for direct control. At the
moment, silicon transistors break when bent. The transistors
are currently placed on the edges where they are less likely
to be damaged. Such screens can still be flexed, but they do
not reproduce moving images, such as video, very well since
the transistors are so far away from each pixel.
INFO
Plastic transistors
Category
Basic Sciences
Led by
Philips Research Laboratories
Prof. Holstlaan 4
5656 AA Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Contact information
Dr Dago de Leeuw
Tel: +31 (0)40 27 42547
E-mail
[email protected]
Website
www.research.philips.com
11
THE DEVELOPMENT OF NOVEL DRUGS AGAINST HIV
Stemming
the tide
According to the United Nations Aids Organisation, there are more than
40 million people around the world currently living with the HIV/AIDS virus.
The burden is heaviest on the shoulders of the globally weak. In 2005, up to
4 million people died from the disease.
Approximately two decades ago, researchers announced
that they had isolated the cause of AIDS. The guilty party
was identified as a lentivirus, a specially focused human
immunodeficiency virus – most of us now know it more
commonly as HIV.
For the past 20 years, the Research Group for Virology and
Chemotherapy at the Rega Institute for Medical Research,
Leuven, Belgium, has played an instrumental role in the
search for new treatments against the HIV/AIDS disease.
In the 1980s, with the support of the European Commission,
a centralised European facility for HIV drugs screening
was created under the leadership of Professor Erik De
Clercq of the Rega Institute. The facility is capable of
processing thousands of substances per year, and numerous
laboratories, institutes and pharmaceutical companies
have taken advantage of it. Significant added support
came from the establishment of a European collaborative
network (consortium) which assembled researchers from
complementary disciplines – in particular, medicinal/
organic chemists from the Czech Republic, Spain and
Britain; molecular biologists and enzymologists from
Sweden; and virology/cellular biologists from Italy. Through
these strategic partnerships, the research team presented a
united front in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
This philosophy was successful when, in 2001, a project led
by Professor Balzarini of the Rega Institute, in collaboration
with teams from six countries (Belgium, the Czech Republic,
Italy, Spain, Sweden and the UK), won the Descartes Prize.
The group focused on finding new lead drugs which inhibit
HIV replication, identifying targets in the HIV replication
cycle that are suitable for drug inhibition, developing novel
therapeutic concepts, and understanding the molecular
basis of HIV drug resistance.
12
The science
The researchers involved in the winning project discovered
novel drugs and antiviral therapeutic targets and developed
new therapeutic concepts which have already led to the
treatment of many thousands of patients with HIV and
hepatitis B infection. The novel drugs show only few,
usually acceptable side effects.
Through careful study of the structure and function of
viruses and antiviral substances, the researchers identified
drugs, such as the acyclic nucleoside phosphonates (ANPs),
which act against DNA viruses and retro(lenti)viruses,
and discovered the very first non-nucleoside reverse
transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs) active against HIV.
Increasing incidence of drug resistance is a major barrier to
long-term therapy, so researchers are devoting significant
attention to this problem. This has led to new approaches
to treating HIV with therapeutics that show a lower rate
of viral drug resistance.
Progress/achievements
Thanks to the consortium’s efforts, researchers were able to
develop novel anti-HIV drugs with an improved resistance
profile. The successful co-operation led to the development
of tenofovir, a new phosphonate nucleoside drug which is a
specific reverse transcriptase inhibitor for the treatment of
AIDS. The drug was licensed to the US drug producer Gilead
Sciences, Foster City, California. It prevents HIV replication
and it also suppresses the replication of many HIV strains
that became resistant to other established anti-HIV drugs.
It was officially approved for clinical treatment of HIVinfected individuals by the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) in the USA in October 2001.
DESCARTES SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH PRIZE
The team
The project was coordinated by Professor Jan Balzarini
of the Rega Institute for Medical Research in Leuven
(Belgium) in collaboration with Dr Maria-José Camarasa
of the Instituto de Química Médica in Madrid (Spain),
Professor Antonin Holý of the Czech Academy of Sciences
in Prague (Czech Republic), Professor Anna Karlsson of the
Karolinska Institute in Stockholm (Sweden), Professor Chris
McGuigan of the University of Wales in Cardiff (UK) and
Professor Carlo-Federico Perno of the University of Rome
‘Tor Vergata’ (Italy).
Basically, tenofovir is able to reduce the amount of HIV
in the blood and, when used in combination with other
antiviral drugs, it can help prevent or reverse damage to
the immune system and reduce the risk of AIDS-related
illnesses. A closely related analogue (adefovir) is used for
the treatment of hepatitis B.
In the European Union, tenofovir was approved in February
2002 and has since been available on the European market.
It was later approved, in combination with another antiHIV drug (emtricitabine) as a combination pill, called
Truvada, that can be taken once daily. Very recently,
tenofovir and emtricitabine have been combined with the
NNRTI efavirenz as a once-a-day triple concentration pill,
called AtriplaTM.
In July 2002, an entirely new subclass of phosphonate
nucleoside drugs (prototype: PMEO-DAPy) was discovered
by researchers in Leuven and Prague (Professor A. Holý),
and is currently under further investigation. The compound
has low toxicity in human blood cells and the researchers
are examining its action mechanism to see whether it has
advantages over tenofovir. Moreover, these compounds
can also act against a broad series of DNA viruses including
poxvirus and papilloma viruses.
Underpinning all the research, the team has also been
developing new ways of delaying, suppressing or
circumventing the emergence of drug-resistant HIV, as
well as investigating ways of optimising and rationalising
current HIV treatments. In addition, Professor C. McGuigan
and Professor A. Karlsson have focused on new delivery
systems of activated nucleoside analogues into intact cells.
The European team is also investigating the feasibility
of developing a new type of pro-drug approach to make
(anti-HIV) drugs more soluble and/or orally bio-available.
The proof of principle in cell culture has already been
established within the Descartes team, in collaboration
with Dr M.J. Camarasa’s and Professor C.F. Perno’s
2001
groups. The researchers are currently collaborating with
pharmaceutical companies to perform further (pre)clinical
research on this pro-drug technology.
In addition, Professor Balzarini developed an entirely novel
therapeutic concept to trigger the immune system to produce
more neutralising antibodies against HIV upon exposure of
the virus to a new class of antivirals. This approach is still in
its infancy and efforts are being made to further elaborate
this principle and to prove the concept in an animal model.
The researchers have shown that carbohydrate-binding
agents, or CBA, may force the virus to delete (partially) its
glycan shield on its envelope gp120. Such drugs are unique
in that they may afford a dual mechanism of antiviral action:
a direct antiviral effect by blocking entry and transmission
of HIV into its target cells, and an indirect antiviral effect
by triggering the immune system to produce neutralising
antibodies against previously uncovered immunogenic
epitopes on the viral (gp120) envelope.
Winning the prize
“Our team combined strong basic science aspects with
clinical applications. The prize money helped to expand
this team and purchase vital new equipment. The money
also covered more day-to-day running expenses and basic
operating costs.”
“We gained new mechanistic insights into the action of
some novel drug leads, studied the drugs’ pharmacology,
designed and synthesised new drug leads and discovered
potential new ways for treatment – all within the Descartes
team,” Professor Balzarini notes. “Patents have been filed on
new antiviral compound leads and pro-drug technologies.”
INFO
Development of novel drugs against HIV
Category
Life Sciences
Led by
Rega Institute for Medical Research, K.U. Leuven
Minderbroedersstraat 10
3000 Leuven, Belgium
Contact information
Professor Jan Balzarini
Head of the Laboratory of Virology and Chemotherapy
Tel: +32 (0)16 33 73 41
Fax: +32 (0)16 33 73 40
E-mail
[email protected]
Website
www.kuleuven.ac.be/rega/
13
DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ASYMMETRIC CATALYSTS FOR CHEMICAL MANUFACTURING
Helping hands
The teams were responsible for solving one of the key challenges faced by
chemists – how to produce only the desired ‘hand’ of a chemical compound
resulting in less chemical waste and minimum cost.
Many chemicals have two so-called ‘hands’: one hand of
the compound may have a desirable property, the other,
essentially its mirror image, may have a detrimental effect.
Traditional methods for dealing with unwelcome hands
are wasteful and costly, so the scientists searched for
alternatives.
The science
Their discovery has made a significant contribution to the
development of catalysts (molecular machines) which are
capable of producing the desired hands in much greater
quantities than the unwanted hand – asymmetric catalysts.
This has resulted in the development of over 50 new
catalysts for chemical reactions, many of which had
no previously known catalyst. These catalysts have the
potential to replace inferior manufacturing methods –
particularly within the pharmaceutical and agrochemical
industries – and will result in more cost-effective and
environmentally friendly commercial processes.
This will have a knock-on effect for consumers in terms of
the cost and quality of these products. The process can be
applied to many different potential pharmaceuticals and
is currently being refined and commercialised by NPIL, a
leading fine-chemicals manufacturer.
Progress/achievements
The research teams continue to make progress in the
field of asymmetric cyanohydrin synthesis. The major
fine-chemical manufacturer, NPIL, formally launched one
of the catalysts (CACHYTM or Catalyst for Asymmetric
CyanoHydrin sYnthesis) in February 2002 and a second
patent (based on vanadium catalysts) has been filed and
is also included in the agreement with NPIL. In 2004, the
technology was sub-licensed to the organisation NARD in
Japan, thus enhancing the global impact of the catalyst.
The researchers have also demonstrated that very costeffective cyanide sources can be used. The research
revealed that, in addition to trimethylsilyl cyanide and
potassium cyanide, ethyl cyanoformate can be used as the
cyanide source. This has the advantage that the reaction
is homogeneous (unlike the potassium cyanide chemistry),
the product is stable (unlike the trimethylsilyl cyanide
product), and the reagents are inexpensive.
The teams are also investigating the subsequent transformations of the cyanohydrin acetates. They have
shown that enantiomerically pure α-hydroxy amides and
α-hydroxy acids can be prepared from the cyanohydrins,
thus enhancing the utility of the methodology.
The use of the catalysts in other related processes is also
being investigated and the chemists have achieved some
very promising preliminary results on the Strecker reaction.
Studies on the catalysis mechanism are also ongoing.
The researchers are making rapid progress, too, in the
application of their catalysts to a totally different reaction:
the synthesis of amino acids under phase transfer conditions.
14
DESCARTES SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH PRIZE
2001
The team
Winning the prize
The project was coordinated by Professor Michael North of
King’s College in London (now at Newcastle University) (UK)
in co-operation with Dr A. Börner of Universität Rostock
(Germany), Professor Y.N. Belokon of A.N. Nesmayanov
Institute of Organoelement Compounds and Dr J.M. Brown of
Oxford University (UK), and Professor H. Kagan of Université
Paris-Sud (France).
The Descartes Prize money helped PhD students and young
researchers to further develop their chemistry careers. The
money also provided funds for chemicals, consumables and
equipment to continue the research and for exchange of
staff and students between the collaborating laboratories.
This collaboration is still continuing, with funding from
INTAS recently secured for the next two years.
They have prepared a series of catalysts based on different
metals, and have shown that copper and cobalt complexes
can be used to synthesise pharmaceutically important
amino acids with a very high excess of one hand of the
product over the other. The application of this methodology
to other reactions is currently under investigation, as is the
mechanism of the reaction.
The teams now have three patents on the catalyst system.
Professor North says the prize is welcome international
recognition of the quality and importance of the work
being carried out within both his research group and those
of the partners.
INFO
Development of new asymmetric catalysts for
chemical manufacturing
Category
Basic Sciences
Led by
King’s College
Department of Chemistry
The Strand, London, WC2R 2LS, United Kingdom
Contact information
Professor Michael North
University of Newcastle
Tel: +44 (0)191 2227128
Fax: +44 (0)870 1313783
Two examples of catalysts prepared during the project.
E-mail
[email protected]
Website
www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/michael.north/index.htm
15
AUTOREACTIVITY IN MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS: STRUCTURAL, FUNCTIONAL AND PATHOLOGICAL STUDIES
Searching for medical
missing links
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, incurable disease of the nervous system
affecting some 350 000 people in Europe. MS is an autoimmune disease, which
means the body’s immune system attacks its own central nervous system.
Symptoms of MS are unpredictable and vary from person
to person and from time to time in the same person. The
disease usually causes sudden neurological symptoms,
including vision loss, paralysis, numbness and walking
difficulties. While some symptoms will come and go over
the course of the disease, others maybe more lasting.
A European team of six research centres developing
treatments for multiple sclerosis won the Descartes Prize
in 2002. The group led by Professor Lars Fugger succeeded
in describing how the disease starts.
The winning research revealed how a virus can mimic
a compound found naturally in the nervous system and
trigger the disease. The team also helped to identify
compounds in the brains of MS patients which explain
how their immune systems over-react, triggering them to
start attacking their own cells.
The science
The researchers discovered that certain genetic variations
may make some people more prone to developing multiple
sclerosis. They did this by using mice which possessed the
same genetic defects as human MS patients.
Through their experiments, the team successfully
defined the principal players in the autoimmune attack
and envisaged how the virus may start a disease. The
researchers’ ultimate objective is to develop new drugs and
immunomodulatory therapies, which are urgently needed
for the treatment of MS patients.
16
According to some scientists, these genetic variations could
make it difficult for the immune system to distinguish
between the Epstein Barr virus (EBV) and myelin – the
fatty material that insulates the nerves and allows them
to transmit electrical signals. When the immune system
mistakes myelin for EBV, it attacks it. The result is that
electrical signals in the body then slowdown or become
mixed up, which leads to the symptoms experienced by
MS patients.
But exactly what triggers this misguided immune system
assault is unclear. The study by Professor Fuggerand
colleagues found that a genetic variation in MS patients
made their immune systems more likely to confuse myelin
for EBV. The study gives more credence to the idea that the
body might be mistaking proteins of the central nervous
system for proteins in the virus.
Leading researchers agree that the new study fulfils a lot of
expectations. For some time, they have known that there
was some relationship between viral and MS attacks. This
does not mean the virus is the cause of MS, but it shows
how viruses might trigger it.
Ultimately, researchers may find that more than one type
of gene variation leads to susceptibility to MS. The focus of
the group is to understand the disease pathways that lead
to MS. This knowledge will be instrumental in designing
future drugs which are urgently needed.
DESCARTES SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH PRIZE
2002
The team
The project was coordinated by Professor Lars Fugger of
Aarhus University Hospital (Denmark), now at the University
of Oxford – John Radcliffe Hospital (UK), together with
Professor Rikard Holmdahl of Lund University (Sweden),
Professor Yvonne Jones Oxford University (UK), in cooperation with the Albert Einstein College of Medicine
(USA), Dundee University (Scotland), and the Danish
School of Pharmacy (Denmark), in the Department of
Clinical Immunology.
Progress/achievements
Winning the prize
In the months following the prize, the researchers identified
how MS disease risk genes can interact. This observation
sheds new light on the complexity of the disease and is
important because, only by understanding this complexity,
can more drugs be developed.
The Descartes Prize was used to extend the consortium
working on the research. Professor Fugger said that it was
a great honour to win the award and that the follow-up
has helped put multiple sclerosis on the European medical
agenda.
The teams also managed to extract and crystallize protein
from the immune system of MS patients. The resultant
crystal structure provides a high-resolution picture of how
this protein can contribute to the disease process, and might
represent a target for new drugs. It is a very important step
forward and may form a basis for the development of new
drugs to treat MS patients.
“The Descartes Prize has added tremendous value to our
research as we have been contacted by new potential
partners, and private sources have expressed interest in
funding our continued research work,” notes Professor
Fugger. “Moreover, winning the prize has also resulted in
increased public interest and understanding for biomedical
research that is even more important.”
All project partners working on the MS project are now
collaborating on other immunology related projects. They
have established liaison officers to improve interaction and
cross-fertilisation between involved partner groups.
The team is currently working with European pharmaceutical
partners on developing new MS medicines, some of which
are already being tested. It is still too early for concrete
applications but they are making good progress. Many of
the teams’ results and reagents are also being used by other
companies and scientists investigating the autoimmunity
of MS and developing new therapies.
In April 2005, Professor Fugger was awarded the prestigious
European Society for Clinical Investigation Award for
Excellence in Clinical Science. The award recognised
Professor Fugger’s pioneering work to understand
molecular mechanisms of the immune system relevant to
human disease using transgenic mouse models expressing
human immune determinants. Such work is beginning to
establish a more clear foundation for understanding the
association of specific major histocompatability complex
class II determinants with autoimmune disease. It is felt
that a clear understanding of this phenomenon may be a
key to new treatments.
INFO
Autoreactivity in multiple sclerosis: structural,
functional and pathological studies
Category
Life Sciences
Led by
Department of Clinical Immunology
Aarhus University Hospital, Skejby Sygehus
8200 Aarhus N, Denmark
Contact information
Professor Lars Fugger
Department of Clinical Neurology
MRC Immunology Unit
University of Oxford
Tel: +44 (0)1865 22 2498
E-mail
[email protected]
Website
www.clneuro.ox.ac.uk
17
SOLVING THE GAMMA-RAY BURST RIDDLE: THE UNIVERSE’S BIGGEST EXPLOSIONS
Rising stars
Twenty astrophysicists, led by Edward van den Heuvel, shared the Descartes
Prize for their research into the origins of gamma-ray bursts. Gamma-ray bursts
are fleeting powerful flashes of photons detected in space and, for 30 years,
have been considered to be the greatest mystery of modern astronomy.
Gamma-ray bursts were discovered by accident in the
1960s and, for the past 35 years, they have been the target
of intense research and speculation by astronomers. Until
recently, we did not know if they came from our own galaxy
or perhaps from as far away as the edge of the Universe.
to trace the history of star formation in the early cosmos.
Most astronomers now believe that they are produced
when young, massive black holes shoot jets of gas into
space at near the speed of light. Bursts occur, they think, as
a gas jet breaks up and its parts collide with each other.
This was the first time that the Descartes Prize went to
astronomers, who discovered that these bursts do come
from the edge of the Universe.
Gamma-ray bursts are detected by satellites orbiting the
Earth and travelling through the solar system. They can only
be detected from space because the Earth’s atmosphere
absorbs gamma rays and, therefore, we cannot observe
them from the ground. The first gamma-ray bursts were
detected by the Vela satellites which were launched in the
1960s by the USA to ensure compliance with the Nuclear
Test Ban Treaty.
Gamma-ray bursts release an extremely large amount of
energy – the equivalent of turning a star like the Sun into
pure energy (using Einstein’s famous equation E=mc2). This
is also the amount of energy released by 1 000 stars over
their entire lifetime of 10 billion years. If you can quantify
it, in the few seconds that a gamma-ray burst occurs, it
releases almost the same amount of energy as the entire
Universe releases in the same time.
After almost 30 years of observing gamma-ray bursts, it was
believed that, on average, one occurs every day somewhere
in the Universe. However, recent developments indicate that
the true number of these events may be 500 times larger,
meaning we see one in every 500 gamma-ray bursts.
The science
Professor van den Heuvel and his co-workers determined
that gamma-ray bursts come from the star-forming
regions of distant galaxies. In the past, scientists batted
around over 150 theories about gamma-ray bursts, but
most involved sources inside our own galaxy.
His team’s discovery greatly narrowed the number of
viable explanations into what causes gamma-ray bursts.
The new clues support what was once just speculation,
that the bursts represented the explosive death of massive
stars. The gamma-ray bursts may become unique probes
of extreme physics and cosmology, allowing astronomers
18
The winning research was carried out with the BeppoSAX
satellite – operated by the Italian Space Agency and the
Dutch Agency for Space Research – from May 1996 to
May 2002. BeppoSAX detected gamma-ray bursts and
quickly worked out precisely where in the sky they came
from. Scientists could then turn optical telescopes, such
as those of the European Southern Observatory and the
Hubble Space Telescope, on these spots.
An afterglow is the emission that follows a gamma-ray burst
in other parts of the spectrum, ranging from radio waves
to X-rays, and lasting from a few days to several years.
The afterglows fade away over time in a well-understood
manner. The discovery of the first afterglows in 1997 was
made possible by BeppoSAX, and has revolutionised the
field of gamma-ray burst astronomy.
Observations of the afterglows all across the spectrum tell
us many things about gamma-ray bursts. First, observations
of the first afterglow in 1997 confirmed that they occur in
very distant galaxies. Second, we can determine from them
how much energy was released in the gamma-ray burst.
Third, we can ascertain how much material was present in
the vicinity of the burst.
DESCARTES SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH PRIZE
2002
The team
The project was coordinated by Professor Edward van den
Heuvel from the Astronomical Institute ‘Anton Pannekoek’
and the Centre for High-Energy Astrophysics at the
University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands), in co-operation
with the University of Amsterdam, SRON and NASA/MSFC
(The Netherlands), CNR/IASF in Rome, INAF Trieste and the
University of Ferrara (Italy), the University of Copenhagen
(Denmark), LAEFF-INTA (Spain), Cambridge University
(UK), and AIP (Germany). Other participants include the
Space Telescope Science Institute, Max Planck Institute
at Garching, Germany, BeppoSAX, and astrophysicists at
Cambridge and Stony Brook University in the USA.
Progress/achievements
Winning the prize
The researchers have since discovered that the gamma-ray
burst on 29 March 2003 was definitely associated with an
extremely powerful stellar explosion, a so-called ‘hypernova’,
the signs of which were discovered about a week after the
actual burst which only lasted a few minutes.
“We all feel that being awarded this prize is a very important
distinction: it means international recognition of our
scientific work at the highest level. One of the values of
the prize for society is that it focuses the attention of the
general public on the importance of scientific research. It
also increases the interest of the public, particularly young
people, in science,” comments Professor van den Heuvel.
At that time, the only other known case of a gamma-ray
burst that coincided with a stellar explosion was that of
25 April 1998 which was also discovered by the team and
associated with the extremely powerful stellar explosion
Supernova 1998.
In astronomy, as in any other science, one single event,
observation or measurement is not considered sufficient
to draw definitive conclusions. The stellar explosion of
29 March 2003 is like an identical twin of the explosion of
25 April 1998.
These two observed occurrences led scientists to draw the
definitive conclusion that these long-duration gammaray bursts (lasting longer than two seconds) are due to
explosions of very massive stars, which accompany the
collapse of the burnt-out stellar core to a black hole. Since
then, several more long gamma-ray bursts have been found
to be associated with supernovae, most recently that of
18 February 2006.
Until 2005, nothing was known about the places of origin
of the short-duration gamma-ray bursts (lasting less than
two seconds and with much harder spectra than the long
bursts). In that year, members of the project consortium and
American colleagues found that several of these originate in
old galaxies in which there are no massive stars, and must
therefore be produced by a different physical mechanism,
which is still being studied.
Furthermore, it can be noted that Professor van den Heuvel
has been a member of the Descartes Grand Jury since 2004.
He and his colleagues are spending their Descartes Prize
winnings on developing new instruments for pinning down
the genesis of these gamma rays. Since winning the prize,
several new partners have joined the team. The project is
now a worldwide collaboration with the addition of Israel,
France, Sweden and the United States.
The award has been a welcome boost to the teams’ budget,
making the expansion of the research possible. The Descartes
Prize has thus raised awareness in the scientific community
about a project that is pure fundamental science.
INFO
Solving the gamma-ray burst riddle
Category
Basic Sciences
Led by
Astronomical Institute “Anton Pannekoek”
Kruislaan 403
1098 SJ Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Contact information
Professor Edward van den Heuvel
Tel: +31 (0)20 525 7493
Fax: +31 (0)20 525 7484
E-mail
[email protected]
Website
www.astro.uva.nl
19
POLYMER LIGHT-EMITTING DIODES FOR DISPLAYS
Bright lights!
The next generation of electronic displays is being developed by the best
and the brightest of Europe’s researchers.
It does not seem too long ago that the electronic game
PAC-MAN was a technological breakthrough. Now we
are in the era of bendable organic monitors and the 2003
Descartes Prize winning team, led by Professor Richard
Friend, is working on polymer-based light-emitting diode
displays (PLEDD) which will revolutionise the way in which
we view things.
The seeds of the research were planted in 1989, when a
doctoral student, Jeremy Burroughes, at the Cavendish
Laboratory in Cambridge, passed an electric current
through a plastic polymer sandwiched between metallic
electrodes. It glowed bright green. His research supervisor,
Professor Friend, saw the potential and filed some broad
patents. In 1992, Professor Friend and colleagues set up
Cambridge Display Technology to develop them.
The winning multinational team of British, German, Dutch
and Swedish researchers from universities and industry
developed polymer-based light-emitting diodes which
will open the door to significant innovations in display
technologies. The glass or silicon in screens of all kinds
could, for example, be replaced with much cheaper plastic.
Polymer light-emitting diodes (PLEDs) consist of a
thin film (0.1 microns) of a polymer plastic, such as
polyparaphenylene vinylene, sandwiched between two
electrodes. They are usually built on a transparent base
which can be glass or flexible plastic.
PLEDs have a great future in displays because they are
lighter, more energy efficient than liquid crystals, and more
flexible. This feature – and their low cost – will enable
electronics to move into cheaper or even throwaway
applications, for which silicon is too rigid and too expensive
and where its high speed is not needed.
Progress made by the German project partner, Covion
(now part of Merck), in the synthesis of polymers has
contributed to a major increase in luminescence efficiency.
One surprising finding was that some materials do not
exhibit the expected ‘solid-state quenching’ effect, where
20
substances that fluoresce vibrantly in solution lose this
property in their solid form.
PLEDs can now be produced with efficiencies comparable
to those of a tungsten light bulb. Therefore, future devices
could be used not only in displays, but also for lighting
applications.
The science
Plastics are normally thought of as insulators but it was
discovered in the late 1970s that, if an organic polymer was
doped chemically, it would have potential as a conductor or
semiconductor. It would behave like a metal but with much
greater electrical conductivity. This has given rise to a new
technology which is challenging liquid crystals for use in
applications such as displays.
Unlike liquid crystals, light-emitting polymers are electroluminescent which means their molecules can emit light
on their own. Displays are made by applying a thin film of
polymer to a glass or plastic base, which has been coated with
transparent electrodes. Light is emitted from the polymer
when an electric field is applied across the electrodes. The
result is virtually instant light-up and a lighter, more energyefficient display than with liquid crystals. And because they
are robust, large-area displays can be made. An additional
advantage is that they can be dissolved in a solution and
printed on a variety of surfaces using an ink-jet system.
The scope of these technologies will be widened when
organic thin-film transistors are available. Although the
assemblies will operate at only a fraction of the speed of
silicon transistors, as used in Intel’s Pentium processors, they
are fast enough for the less expensive end of the market.
In addition to displays, they are likely to be used in throwaway
products, with plastic chips being printed on consumer items
such as T-shirts, drinks cans and food cartons for displaying
health messages or providing sales data.
DESCARTES SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH PRIZE
2003
The team
The project coordinator, Professor Richard Friend of the
University of Cambridge (UK), worked together with Dr
Jeremy Borroughes of Cambridge Display Technology
(UK), Dr Eliav Haskal of Philips Electronics (The
Netherlands), Professor Jean-Luc Bredas of Materia Nova
in Mons (Belgium), Professor William Salaneck of Linköping
University (Sweden), and Dr Hermann Schenk of Covion
Organic Semiconductors in Frankfurt am Main (Germany).
Progress/achievements
Winning the prize
Philips was the first to market a product derived from
the work. A pilot-scale line at its factory in Heerlen (The
Netherlands) has manufactured monochrome passivematrix screens for the top-of-the-range ‘Spectra‘ electric
shaver (which notably featured in the 2002 James Bond
film Die Another Day).
The money was distributed around the consortium members,
leaving each partner free to choose how to use it. “It seems
clear to us that several of the teams want to use some of
the prize money to improve ‘networking’ between partners,
particularly where they want to find new ideas,” Professor
Friend confirms.
Currently, displays are limited to deposited glass or silicon
backings, but with flexible plastic substrate seven reel-toreel processing would be possible. This would effectively
overcome the problem of size limitations, while offering
the economies-of-scale benefits of continuous mass
production, as well as the convenience and environmental
gains of operating under ambient conditions. Cambridge
Display Technology and Philips have actively pursued the
use of direct ink-jet printing. Top-end printers already offer
adequate resolution and uniformity; it only remains to
develop the appropriate ‘inks’ and matching print-heads.
“The ability to operate on the European scale has made a
difference. It made new things much more possible, notably
to ‘push the boundaries’ with high-risk research. The most
valuable money is the money that you can use to try out
something slightly on the edge, because it is very hard to
get ordinary sources of funding,” he concludes.
Real commercial success will come when full-colour
displays are introduced. The groups have shown that it
is possible to demonstrate the technology on small-scale
screens, but research is continuing on the development of
larger screens and polymers that can produce the three
primary colours. The predictions are that PLED screens for
televisions and computers could be available by the end of
the decade.
In March 2003, Professor Friend became the 81st recipient
of the Institution of Electrical Engineers’s Faraday Medal.
In June of the same year, he was knighted for “Services to
Physics” in the British Queen’s Birthday Honours List.
INFO
Polymer light-emitting diodes for displays
Category
Basic Sciences
Led by
Optoelectronics Group
Cavendish Laboratory
University of Cambridge
J.J. Thomson Avenue
Cambridge CB3 0HE, United Kingdom
Contact information
Professor Sir Richard Friend
Tel: +44 (0)1223 337218
Fax: +44 (0)1223 764515
E-mail
[email protected]
Website
http://www-oe.phy.cam.ac.uk
21
NON-RIGID EARTH NUTATION MODEL
Accurate positioning in a
wobbly world
Nutation in astronomy is a slight wobbling motion of the Earth’s axis. The
causes of nutation are similar to those of the precession of the equinoxes,
involving the varying attraction of the Moon and the Sun on the Earth’s
equatorial bulge.
This poses a problem when trying to work out accurately
where we are in relation to space or to a satellite orbiting
around the Earth. How are we meant to know exactly
where we are when our points of reference are constantly
moving?
In today’s society, there is a growing demand for precise
positioning and navigation systems. Accuracy is vital
to the way that we are trying to move this technology
forward, and is key to being more efficient travellers or to
having greater personal security.
The Descartes winning team, led by Professor Véronique
Dehant, in collaboration with groups from eight European
countries, as well as five non-European countries, has
successfully produced a highly accurate reference
framework, using detailed computation of variations in
the Earth‘s rotation and orientation in space. Basically, the
research has greatly improved the accuracy of pinpoint
positioning on Earth.
The science
Scientists agree that the Earth is not a very stable platform
from which to make measurements of directions in space
because it vibrates on its axis, revolves around the Sun,
and follows the Sun as a member of the solar system on
its journey around the galaxy. Astronomers measuring the
positions of stars, planets, etc. have used considerable
ingenuity in removing from their observations the effects
22
of the Earth’s complex movements. The Earth is roughly
a flattened sphere whose equator is tilted at 23 degrees
to the plane of its orbit around the Sun. As a result,
the gravitational attraction of the Sun causes the Earth
to wobble like a spinning top, with a period of 26 000
years (precession). The Moon also causes smaller wobbles
and has a whole range of periods, from days to 18.6
years (nutation). Besides these quivers, there are more
complicated gravitational effects due to the fact that the
Earth is not rigid – it contains a liquid core and a solid
inner core, and it changes shape under the attraction of
the Sun and Moon (tidal deformation). Finally, the effects
of the atmosphere and the oceans have to be considered,
as their attraction and loading on the Earth also change
the amplitudes of its vibrations.
The team set about tackling the problem posed by the
very slight inclination of the Earth’s axis as it orbits the
Sun, known as nutation. The researchers developed a new
model that dramatically improved the precision of the
Earth orientation in space, which can now be measured in
terms of centimetres rather than metres. It is very useful
for precise satellite positioning and navigation systems.
We can now locate the position of the world in space to
an astonishing degree of accuracy.
This progress could prove extremely beneficial to space
missions and satellite applications, especially in the
framework of such major European projects as Galileo
and the global monitoring for environment and security
(GMES).
DESCARTES SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH PRIZE
2003
The team
Led by Professor Véronique Dehant of the Royal Observatory
of Belgium, with colleagues Dr F. Defraigne, Dr O. de Viron,
Dr F. Roosbeek, and Professor T. Van Hoolst, in association
with researchers from her institution and key contacts at
institutes around the world. These include Dr F. Arias of the
Bureau International des Poids et Mesures in Sèvres, Dr M.
Bretagnon and colleagues of the Institut de Mécanique
Céleste et de Calcul des Ephémérides in Paris, and Dr
N. Capitaine and colleagues at the Observatory of Paris
(France), Professor A. Brzezinski of the Space Research
Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw
(Poland), Dr M. Folgueira of Complutense University of
Madrid, Professor J.M. Ferrándiz and colleagues of the
University of Alicante, and Professor J. Getino of Valladolid
University (Spain), Dr S. Klioner and Professor M. Soffel of the
Technical Universities of Dresden, Professor M. Rothacher
of Munich Technical University and Professor S.Y. Zhu of
the GeoForschungs Zentrum Potsdam (Germany), Professor
H. Schuh and Professor R. Weber of the Technical University
of Vienna (Austria), Dr J. Vondrak of the Astronomical
Institute of the Academy of Sciences in Prague (Czech
Republic), Professor Y. Yatskiv of the Main Astronomical
Observatory of the National Academy of Sciences in Kiev
(Ukraine), and Professor V. Zharov of the Sternberg State
Astronomical Institute of Moscow State University (Russia).
Researchers from the USA, Canada, China, Japan and India
also participated in the project.
Progress/achievements
The team has grown since winning the Descartes Prize
in 2003, with the welcome addition of young scientists
interested in the research. Together, the expanded team
will continue to work on modelling more accurate
rigid Earth nutations, taking into account, for example,
additional corrections for ocean and atmosphere effects
on the nutations and seismic effects.
Professor Dehant revealed that a list of steps in the next
phase has been identified. In particular, there will be
improvement on the theoretical side, such as coupling
mechanisms inside the Earth, and on the observational
side, as the team studies how the new generation of
global positioning systems (GPS) and the Galileo system
will help determine the nutations.
Looking a little further afield, she plans to apply the same
methodology to study Mars. The work will help determine
whether the Red Planet has a liquid core similar to that
of the Earth. The experiment will form part of a future
mission to Mars involving the deployment of landers on
the Martian surface in a few years from now. This is an
exciting new development for the group.
Winning the prize
The consortium decided to use the prize money to
sponsor PhD and postdoctoral exchanges, as well as to
pay for meetings among the working groups involved in
the Descartes Prize project. The objective is to reach the
next decimal of the modelling of the nutation, making the
measurements that much more accurate.
The team has also sent out a call for proposals in the scientific
community to further their work. An advisory board has
been created and has selected the proposals to be financed
by the prize money. The future looks very promising.
INFO
Non-rigid earth nutation model
Category
Basic Sciences
Led by
Royal Observatory of Belgium
Av. Circulaire 3 – Ringlaan 3
1180 Brussels, Belgium
Contact information
Professor Véronique Dehant
Head of Section “Time, Earth Rotation and Space
Geodesy”
Tel: +32 (0)2 373 02 66
E-mail
[email protected]
Website
http://homepage.oma.be/veroniq/
23
COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH IN MITOCHONDRIAL BIOGENESIS, AGEING AND DISEASE (MBAD)
‘Power station’ genes for
healthy, long lives?
Scientists from the five partner institutes in the MBAD project pioneered
the study of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in disease and ageing and are
now gathering new knowledge that will guide the development of curative
therapies, and possibly extend healthy human life.
In 1988, Dr Ian Holt, who now heads a team at the UK’s
Medical Research Council (MRC), opened up the field by
making the breakthrough discovery of genetic mutations
in the mtDNA of people exhibiting muscular abnormalities.
Shortly afterwards, Dr Massimo Zeviani of the Italian
Istituto Nazionale Neurologico ‘CarloBesta‘, in Milan,
reported the first identified cases of multiple mtDNA
deletions (defects).
Then, in the early 1990s, Professor Howard Jacobs – currently
at the University of Tampere, Finland, and coordinator of the
MBAD group – was one of several researchers to observe that
such mutations also gave rise to some common conditions,
such as inherited deafness in children.
Throughout the 1990s, the group also made major progress
in mapping, identifying and determining the functions
of key nuclear genes involved in the maintenance and
replication of mtDNA. It became clear that nuclear gene
products are also involved in mitochondrial disease. The
Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale
(INSERM) in Paris produced the first report on this subject in
1995, and subsequently patented a drug called Idebenone,
a powerful antioxidant, for use in treatment.
The pioneers went on to collaborate with a wider group
of institutions. Their work was aided by EU support under
the Third and Fifth Framework Programmes for research
(FP3 and FP5) – and is continuing to be funded through
the FP6 Integrated Project EUMITOCOMBAT (www.
eumitocombat.org).
24
A major additional objective was to determine the role of
mtDNA in the ageing process. The Swedish participants
in MBAD developed a special strain of mouse, genetically
modified to produce a higher than normal error rate in
the replication of its mtDNA. As a result, the mice showed
clear signs of premature ageing.
The science
Mitochondria are key components of the body’s cells:
they produce enzymes which burn sugars and fats to
deliver the energy needed for all vital functions. Uniquely,
mitochondria contain small quantities of DNA that
are separate from the ‘main’ DNA contained in the cell
nucleus, although the two sets of genes do function in
concert. Mitochondrial DNA contains just 37 genes and,
unlike nuclear DNA, is inherited exclusively through the
maternal line (from mother to child).
Early findings regarding mtDNA related principally to rare
illnesses which, despite their severity, were not accorded
high research priority because of their infrequency.
However, since then, scores of different mtDNA mutations,
plus a similar number of mutations in nuclear genes for
mitochondrial functions, have been identified as the causes
of numerous disorders, including some conditions that
are relatively common. Mitochondrial dysfunction mainly
affects tissues which are highly dependent on biological
energy: the brain, heart, muscles, and secretory and
sensory organs. The long list includes Parkinson’s disease,
epilepsy, encephalopathy, diabetes, infertility, heart failure
and other forms of muscular weakness or paralysis.
DESCARTES SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH PRIZE
2004
The disease presented in the figure is called
autosomal dominant progressive external
ophthalmoplegia (ad-PEO) and it is an
example of nucleus-driven abnormality
of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). The
pedigree shown in the upper panel clearly
demonstrates that ad-PEO is transmitted
as a dominant trait. Affected individuals
(red symbols) are characterised by the
accumulation of multiple mtDNA deleted
species, as shown in a Southern blot of
linearised mtDNA from muscle biopsies.
The disease causes the paralysis of the eye
muscles including that which raises the
upper eyelid, which droops down in a patient
(middle panel). The disorder, however, is more
generalised, causing a typical mitochondrial
myopathy (bottom panel).
The team
The MBAD project was led by Professor Howard Trevor
Jacobs of the University of Tampere in Finland, who worked
with Professor Nils Göran Larsson of Karolinska Institutet’s
Department of Medical Nutrition (Sweden), Dr Ian J. Holt of
the Medical Research Council (UK), Dr Massimo Zeviani of
the Istituto Nazionale Neurologico ‘CarloBesta’ (Italy), and
Dr Pierre Rustin of the Institut National de la Santé et de la
Recherche Médicale (France).
Progress/achievements
Winning the prize
MBAD members hope that, in the long term, their efforts
will lead to treatments for mitochondrial disease. “Our
work may eventually help us to treat a substantial
proportion of cases of many common diseases, especially
those affecting the elderly, including neurodegeneration,
diabetes, hearing and vision loss, and so on,” explains
Professor Jacobs.
The Descartes Prize has greatly boosted recognition of this
field of work, even among the general public, Professor
Jacobs notes. “The idea that the term ‘mitochondria’ might be
widely recognised and understood, and that its importance
in human health and disease would be acknowledged, is a
very important gain for our area of studies.”
Since they received their Descartes award, MBAD
members have been extending both the fundamental
and applied aspects of their research on mitochondria,
ageing and disease. The teams in the UK, Finland and Italy
are working closely to broaden their knowledge of how
mitochondrial DNA replicates. “Although this is very much
in the category of ‘basic research’, it is really essential
if we are to understand how somatic mitochondrial
mutations arise and contribute to disease and ageing,”
says Professor Jacobs.
Four members of the team are pursuing a promising new
approach to gene therapy for mitochondrial diseases, based
on the use of the so-called alternative oxidase enzyme,
found in many lower organisms. “This work is still at a
very early stage, but the ‘metabolic bypass therapy’ that
this offers could have very wide applications in medicine,”
Professor Jacobs admits.
The award has also thrust MBAD members into the public
limelight. “Remarkably, people stop me in the street or in
the supermarket to ask me about mitochondria and ageing!”
Professor Jacobs enthuses.
But he believes it is necessary to step out of the lab
sometimes. “I feel this is really important to enable our
work to progress. The public must have some appreciation
of where this apparently esoteric line of research leads, and
how it can affect their lives and health in the future.”
INFO
Mitochondrial biogenesis, ageing and disease (MBAD)
Category
Life Sciences
Led by
Institute of Medical Technology
33014 University of Tampere, Finland
Contact information
Professor Howard Trevor Jacobs
Tel: +35 83355 17731
Fax: +35 83355 17710
E-mail
howard.t.Jacobs@uta.fi
Website
www.finmit.org/howylab.htm
Professor Howard Trevor Jacobs
25
IST-QUCOMM – LONG-DISTANCE PHOTONIC QUANTUM COMMUNICATION
teleportation,
Quantum
a key to secure communications
Quantum physicists have shown that teleportation, the science-fiction dream
of making an object disappear while a replica appears somewhere else, is
indeed a reality – at least for photons (light particles) or atoms.
In the IST-QuComm project, European and American
researchers joined forces to develop and demonstrate
intriguing applications of quantum physics: from quantum
teleportation to the perfectly secure transmission of
encrypted information over cable links and through free
space – eventually aiming towards a global network for
secure communications.
Researchers have performed experiments in which it has
proven possible to correlate – give twin-like properties – to
photons, even after they have been transmitted to widely
separated locations. Once described by Albert Einstein as
‘spooky action at a distance‘, this effect can be used to do
“quantum teleportation” which is a process of teleporting
the full information down to the tiniest quantum level of
an object from one place to another.
In the EU-supported (2000-2003) IST-QuComm project,
scientists sought to extend the transmission limits of such
quantum teleportation, and to show the use of this effect
as a way to provide a transmission channel that could not
be listened into without being detected.
The science
To perform these feats, the scientists used an effect called
quantum entanglement. Quantum entanglement involves
simultaneously produced photons linked to one another as
twins, triplets or larger groupings, which effectively perform
as if they were single objects. Even when such photons
are separated geographically by distances that exclude
normal physical influences, modification of one of them
automatically causes its remote counterpart to behave in
the same way. What’s more, both particles are actually
without properties until they are measured, all they “know”
is that they should behave in a similar manner.
26
Entanglement can find use in so-called quantum
cryptography. In quantum cryptography, a cryptographic
key, which can be used to hide the actual message, is sent
between the communication parties encoding the key data
bits on individual photons. One way to send such keys is to
use entangled photons, where the entangled photon pairs
carry the keys from the transmitter to the receiver, with
per data key bit one photon sent to the receiver, and the
photon twin sent to the transmitter. The security of such
systems resides in the property that if someone eavesdrops
on the transmission it breaks the entanglement, the twin
properties disappear and the real communicating parties
can find this out and take countermeasures. In fact,
it can be proven that the security of such a quantum
cryptographic system is complete, which is not possible
with any conventional classical system.
Quantum cryptography, as being offered commercially
today can be done without entanglement using faint laser
light from laser diodes. The extra security of quantum
cryptography, based on entanglement, is that it eliminates
some of the possible security loopholes in these firstgeneration systems. Furthermore, entangled states can
be used to provide cryptographic relay links to extend the
distance possible for doing quantum cryptography.
Progress/achievements
In 1998, the University of Vienna – later to become an ISTQuComm partner – was the first to demonstrate quantum
cryptography with entangled photons. A number of further
technological breakthroughs occurring within the project
itself have boosted the state of the art in this field. Much
new knowledge was gained about the fundamental
mechanisms of entanglement and how to generate and
detect entangled photons. In particular, the work in
DESCARTES SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH PRIZE
The team
The project was coordinated by Professor Anders Karlsson
of the Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, Stockholm (Sweden),
with partners Professor Harald Weinfurter of the LudwigMaximilians-Universität München (Germany), Professor
Anton Zeilinger of the Institut für Experimentalphysik der
Universität Wien (Austria), Professor Artur Ekert of the
Centre for Quantum Computation, Oxford University (UK),
Professor Nicolas Gisin of the Group of Applied Physics,
Geneva University (Switzerland), Dr Richard Hughes of
the Physics Division in the Quantum Institute, Los Alamos
National Laboratory (USA), Dr Thierry Debuisschert of the
Research and Technology Division, Thales (France), and
Professor John G. Rarity of the E&EE Department, Bristol
University, QinetiQ (UK).
Munich should be mentioned, and Los Alamos in the US
on entangled state systems, and especially the work in
Geneva on long-distance telecom compatible quantum
communication systems.
While much of the technology used in the project was
similar to current optical systems – i.e. the backbone of
the internet and broadband communications – working
at the scale of single (or a few) photons required novel
approaches, purpose-built electronics and optics, and
extreme care in the experimentation. New laser-based
photon generator sources were produced, with higher
brightness, smaller size and greater ease of use than
ever before. Specially customised detectors and counting
electronics were also developed, enabling more complex
transmission experiments to be performed.
Perhaps one of QuComm’s most spectacular results was
its long-distance field trial using a 6 km optical fibre link
partly going below the river Danube in Vienna. In a historic
ceremony, on 21 April 2004, Bank Austria Creditanstalt
used the link to perform the world’s first-ever bank transfer
to be authorised by means of quantum cryptography.
The project partners are now involved in SECOQC, a
40-partner project under the EU‘s Sixth Framework
Programme, aimed at setting up a global network for
secure communications.
“IST-QuComm worked on fibre-optical communication
technologies of the future,” says project coordinator
Anders Karlsson, but quantum key distribution is something
for the near future. Not only is it a secure method for
encrypting secret messages, “there are some other
2004
spin-off technologies related to the fact that we work with
the detection of extremely low levels of light, down to the
level of individual light quanta, called photons – the smallest
unit of light possible”, he explains. This could be used by the
life sciences for rapid DNA sequencing, for example.
“As for applications,” stresses Professor Karlsson, “our
project was basic research, which means that it was about
understanding nature better and the laws of physics. By
default, this means that we, as a society, get to know the
rules and laws that govern nature better – and that’s an
application in its own right!”
Winning the prize
Since winning in December 2004, there has hardly been
time to distribute the prize money to the participating
teams, admits Professor Karlsson. But the prize has certainly
left its mark on the group. “Winning the Descartes Prize
[...] is important recognition that our research on quantum
physics and technologies is of scientific and societal
relevance,” he adds.
The extensive media coverage generated by the prize – and
the public interest in what IST-QuComm was doing – came
as quite a surprise. “In my home country, Sweden, after
winning the prize, we had high-school students coming to
see our lab, received invitations from science festivals and
many newspapers showed interest in our work,” he says.
“On a personal level, many of my friends and neighbours
– even people I met in pubs and bars – mentioned they had
read about our research ... quite fun, actually!”
INFO
IST-QuCOMM
Category
Basic Sciences
Led by
Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan
Valhallavägen 79
10044 Stockholm, Sweden
Contact information
Professor Anders Karlsson
Strategic Research Center in Photonics
Tel: +46 (0)8 790 40 81
Fax: +46 (0)8 790 40 90
E-mail
[email protected]
Website
http://www.imit.kth.se/info/FOFU/SRCP/WWW/index.php
27
CECA: CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES IN THE ARCTIC
cold facts
about a hot topic
Assembling the
Global warming is a ‘hot topic’ for our times – yet popular debate on the
subject is often begun without full understanding of the complex interplay of
factors producing climate change.
In Climate and Environmental Change in the Arctic (CECA),
valuable input from a Russian partner has helped the
European consortium to compile new evidence relating to
the decreasing Arctic Ocean ice cover. The study reaches
some important conclusions about the likely consequences
of global change in the Arctic.
The science
The Arctic is a unique region, exerting a key influence
on the global climatic system. Debate has raged over
whether the recent progressive increase in surface air
temperature and decline in ice cover is due to a natural
cycle, or to the increasing greenhouse gases as a result
of human activities. Given that a continuation of this
trend, whatever its cause, would have a profound effect
on the strongly marine-influenced climate of Europe,
considerable effort and resources have been ploughed into
investigating the underlying phenomena. As part of this
drive, the collaborative research collectively called CECA
has been carried out in the framework of a suite of closely
interrelated, European-funded projects spanning the past
decade.
The current global temperature rise is by no means an
isolated event. Considerable cyclical variations are known
to have occurred throughout history. The previous most
significant warming began in the 1920s, primarily in the
Arctic region. During its peak period, between 1930 and
1940, the average annual temperature anomaly for the
area 60°N-90°N amounted to some 1.5°C, before cooling
took place towards the middle of the 1960s. This strong
event was analysed by the CECA team and interpreted to
be natural variability internal to the climate system. Since
1980, however, the rate of increase has been larger, global
in nature but strongly amplified in the Arctic region.
28
Progress/achievements
Rising temperatures have also coincided with a strong
increase in the atmospheric concentration of the greenhouse
gas carbon dioxide (CO2), which thus is likely to be a
prominent contributory factor to the observed warming, the
CECA team concludes. “The Arctic is subject to wholesale
change, as we can now confirm by satellite monitoring,”
notes Professor Johannessen (see figure on page 29).
“We are seeing a 3% decrease in the area of total ice cover
per decade, and a 7% decrease per decade in the area of
multi-year ice. With CO2 emissions set to double by the
end of the century, our climate model forecasts indicate
that the summer ice could disappear completely at that
time. “Curiously enough,” he adds, “the interior of the
Greenland ice sheet is actually thickening by 5 cm/year. This
underlines the complexity of the system. This is primarily
(75%) caused by a ‘natural’ weather phenomenon, called
the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), which results in more
winter snow and – to a lesser degree (25%) – by global
warming, which causes more evaporation from the ocean
and, again, increased snowfall.” These results have recently
been published in Science (Johannessen O.M., Khvorostovsky
K., Miles M.W. and Bobylev L.P., Recent ice sheet growth in
the interior of Greenland, Science, AAAS, Vol. 310, pp. 10131016, 2005).
The CECA team also investigated how the increased
greenhouse gases will interact and influence the natural
variability of the weather system in the North Atlantic
and Arctic regions. Under the doubling of atmospheric CO2
scenario, at the end of this century, the low pressure systems
between Iceland and the Azores (describing the NAO), will
intensify – causing warmer, wetter and wilder weather in
Northern Europe, particularly during winter time, with drier
weather in the Mediterranean region.
DESCARTES SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH PRIZE
2005
The team
Winning the prize
The project was coordinated by Professor Ola M. Johannessen
of the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center
(NERSC) which is affiliated to the University of Bergen,
Norway in co-operation with Professor Lennart Bengtsson
of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg,
Germany, and Dr Leonid Bobylev of the NERSC in St
Petersburg, Russia.
Professor Johannessen and deputy project leader Lasse H.
Pettersson caution that the Arctic Ocean in the 21st century
is also likely to be increasingly vulnerable to pollution.
“We must further improve our capabilities to understand,
quantify and predict the spatial distribution, temporal
evolution and biogeochemical consequences of humangenerated contamination, including nuclear residues, in this
vulnerable environment. It will require continuing use and
refinement of the integrated methodology of observation
and numerical modelling we have pioneered in CECA.”
While much more remains to be done in order to obtain
unambiguous answers to the outstanding questions, the CECA
consortium has identified a number of potential human and
socio-economic consequences of the undoubted shrinkage of
Arctic sea-ice cover – not all of which are negative:
1. Reductions in solar reflection from the ice, and increased
areas of open water, would have significant effects on
energy balances and atmospheric and oceanic circulation
in the high latitudes;
This is being achieved through the use of the Descartes
Prize grant of 200 000 euros to support young Russian
scientists and students to continue studies of climate
change processes and their impact in the high Arctic. The
Norwegian Minister of Education and Research Oystein
Djupedal is also supporting these research and recruitment
activities by matching the Descartes Prize grant.
2. Exposure of vast areas of the cold open water of the
Arctic Ocean, which has a high capacity for CO2
absorption, would provide a new and important sink for
this greenhouse gas;
3. Changes in the pathways and spreading of melt water –
and in the stratification in the Nordic Seas, as well as the
effects of reduced deepwater formation in the Greenland
Sea on global oceanic circulation, including a reduction
of the Gulf Stream – could greatly alter the climate of
the Arctic and adjacent regions, including Europe;
4. Broad changes in the marine ecosystem – e.g. migration
of plankton in the North Atlantic due to less ice and a
greater inflow of melt water – could have a negative
impact on Arctic and sub-Arctic marine biodiversity.
Stocks may move or change in the Nordic and Barents
Seas, which are among the most important fisheries in
the world. On the positive side, however, there would
be a larger area for the establishment of new fishing
grounds;
5. Milder conditions in the high latitudes would offer Europe
increased opportunities for exploitation and production
of offshore oil and gas, mineral and other resources.
An extended open-water season would permit increased
use of the Northern Sea Route, particularly if the sea-ice
conditions lessen to the extent predicted by the models.
This would greatly reduce the length of voyages between
Europe, the Far East and the west coast of North America,
bringing both economic and environmental advantages.
INFO
Climate and Environmental Change in the Arctic
(CECA)
Category
Earth Sciences
Led by
Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center
(NERSC), affiliated to the University of Bergen
Thormohlensgate 47
5006 Bergen, Norway
Contact information
Professor Ola M. Johannessen
Tel: +47 55 20 58 00
Fax: +47 55 20 58 01
E-mail
[email protected]
Website
www.nersc.no
29
EURO-PID: EUROPEAN INITIATIVE ON PRIMARY IMMUNODEFICIENCIES
Immune system
studies promise cures
for common diseases
Primary immunodeficiencies (PIDs) are a group of over 130 rare genetically
determined diseases leaving sufferers – mostly children – prone to infection,
lymph cell proliferation and autoimmune disorders. With the collaboration of
seven prominent European research teams, the EURO-PID project has amassed
new information about these often life-threatening disorders. By assembling
a group of patients for clinical trials, it has also made valuable progress
towards the identification of effective gene therapy solutions.
Immunodeficiencies arise from defects in the white cells,
or leukocytes, present mainly in the blood, spleen and bone
marrow. They can make it difficult for those affected to
cope with a variety of infections, or trigger autoimmune
responses, such as anaemia or vasculitis, in which the
body’s immune system attacks its own tissues and organs.
body. Each reacts to specific pathogen-associated molecules,
such as proteins and sugars – which, when detected, trigger
the generation of a small number of lymphocytes capable of
recognising them. These rapidly multiply in order to produce a
sufficient immune response, typically over a period of several
days. Adaptive immunity usually increases with repeated
exposure to a given infection and is retained as a memory.
The science
“The immune system is extremely complex,” explains
Professor Alain Fischer of INSERM, France’s national institute
for health and medical research, who is the coordinator of
the EURO-PID project. “You can compare the processes
involved to the actions of an army equipped with a range of
different weapons, individually designed to combat bacteria,
viruses, parasites, fungi and other potential attackers.
Some forms of defence are ‘innate’ – in other words they
are shared with even the simplest of organisms – others
are ‘adaptive’, having been acquired much later along the
evolutionary path.”
Innate immunity is the first line of defence against infection,
and also provides the body with a signal of ‘danger’. It derives
from the action of phagocyte cells, a form of leukocyte with
surface or internal receptors of broad specificity, able to
bind to molecules present in a variety of micro-organisms,
which they then engulf and destroy. Adaptive immunity, on
the other hand, is a slower process mediated by lymphocyte
cells, of which there are many different types present in the
30
Progress/achievements
Genetic mutations or deficiencies that give rise to
breakdowns in the processes of leukocyte production and
control are at the root of immunological disorders. In one
sense, PIDs are ideal subjects for research in this field, as they
are frequently monogenic in nature – i.e. each is related to a
particular mutation in a single gene. However, their study is
rendered more difficult by the irrarity. This makes it harder
to gather adequate data, or to reach enough of the widely
scattered sufferers to constitute a meaningful sample for
analysis and testing. Through a combination of clinical
immunology and basic scientific studies, the consortium
DESCARTES SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH PRIZE
The team
EURO-PID (European initiative on primary immunodeficiencies)
pools the resources of seven of the most active European
research teams, drawn from France, Italy, Sweden and the
United Kingdom. It is led by Professor Alain Fischer of France’s
Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale
(INSERM). Partners include Professor Jean-Laurent Casanova,
University of René (France), Professor CI. Edvard Smith
and Professor Lennart Hammarström, Karolinska Institutet
(Sweden), Professor Luigi Daniele Notarangelo, Universita degli
Studi di Brescia (Italy), Professor Adrian Trasher, University
College London (UK), and Dr Anna Villa, CNR Istituto di
Tecnologie Biomediche (Italy).
made great strides in several key areas. Understanding the
molecular mechanisms accounting for given conditions
has provided valuable information on how cells in the
immune system differentiate and accomplish their specific
functions, as well as regulate immune responses. “In all,
we estimate that there are at least 130 distinct diseases
leading to impaired response or systemmal function,”
Professor Fischer observes. “Over the past five years, our
collaboration has produced a wealth of information on the
responsible mechanisms, including the characterisation of
defects in 20 important defensive genes.”
The work focused on six principal areas:
1. Understanding the formation processes and development
of defects in T-lymphocytes, which are the master cells
active in fighting severe infections, particularly those
caused by viruses;
2005
this common condition. “Once the disease mechanism
was unravelled, we could introduce a ‘normal’ copy of the
identified gene, known as ‘gamma-c’, into lymphocyte
progenitors in the patients’ bone marrow, which is the body’s
blood cell factory,” says Professor Fischer. Six years later, the
survivors provide clear proof of principle. In some cases,
however, the treatment resulted in a complication. Three
of the 17 subjects experienced uncontrolled leukaemia-like
cell proliferation – and, regrettably, one of them died.
“Today, our immediate objective is to make the technology
safer – and we are seeking an answer by modifying the way
in which we introduce genes into the cells. Every time a
genetic effect is identified, or a correlation made between
the severity of a condition and a particular mutation,
new diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic tools become
available to improve patient care. A second goal is, therefore,
to build on our experience by developing safe vectors for
gene transfer treatment of other similar conditions in the
near future. We already envisage tackling at least three
more PIDs within the next few years. In the longer term,
I also believe our discoveries will form the foundation for
strategies to alleviate and cure many more common diseases,
despite the greater complexity of their genetic origins.”
Winning the prize
The prize money enabled Professor Fischer to hire post-docs
and buy new equipment such as a laser for applications in
the field of cytometry. His research work remains in the
spirit of the Descartes Prize, which means he participates in
a number of European collaborative research projects. “I am
continuing on the same track”, Professor Fischer notes.
2. Analysis of the development of defects that impair the
ability of B-lymphocytes to fulfil their role as producers
of antibodies;
3. Identifying molecular defects in phagocyte cells,
which provide innate immunity against, for instance,
streptococci and mycobacteria and remove dead cells;
4. Investigating how and why T- and NK- (natural killer)
lymphocytes act in destroying infected and tumour cells;
5. Determining the nature of inherited and acquired
defects in the apoptosis process, whereby excess or
inappropriately targeted lymphocytes are triggered to die
(failure of this mechanism is the cause of autoimmune
diseases); and
6. Exploring gene therapy as a basis of new treatments for
life-threatening immune disorders.
After several years of effort, the partners succeeded in
developing a promising form of gene therapy for one type of
severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), and were able to
organise a clinical trial on a ‘cohort’ of 17 patients sharing
INFO
European initiative on primary immunodeficiencies
(EURO-PID)
Category
Life Sciences
Led by
Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche
Médicale (INSERM)
101, rue de Tobliac, 75015 Paris, France
Contact information
Professor Alain Fischer
Tel: +33 (0)1 44 49 50 71
Fax: +33 (0)1 42 73 06 40
E-mail
fi[email protected]
Website
www.necker.fr
31
ESS: EUROPEAN SOCIAL SURVEY – INNOVATIONS IN COMPARATIVE MEASUREMENT
Setting new standards for
measuring
social change
Governments, decision-makers and opinion-shapers have access to large volumes
of economic indicators as a basis for their judgements and actions. However,
they are less well served in terms of social indicators, since cross-national social
surveys tend to be conducted with varying degrees of statistical rigour.
The European social survey – innovations in comparative
measurement (ESS) project has now developed a consistent
scientific approach that will permit accurate Europe-wide
mapping of the changes occurring in citizens’ attitudes and
values. The project is closely coordinated by a central team
from six institutions from five different Member States.
In addition, each participating country has a national
coordinator and a survey institute to organise face-toface at-home interviews of a statistically representative
sample of at least 1 500 randomly selected citizens aged
15 and above. The rigid framework of the survey is such
that no substitutions are permissible, nor any deviations
from the centrally determined specification.
The science
The study of changing social attitudes and values across
Europe, which are central to understanding modern
societies, has historically fallen short of expectations. While
deficiencies existed at national level in many countries,
they were even larger, more persistent and more serious
at European level. Volumes of important comparative
data were either missing altogether or were available in
such different forms in different countries that the basis
for comparison was often tenuous. Resolution of this
problem was hampered by seemingly insuperable cultural,
contextual and methodological obstacles.
In 1995, the European Science Foundation set up an expert
group to help overcome these hurdles. Its conclusions
formed the basis of the ESS (European Social Survey)
initiative which, in 2001, first received EU funding under
the Fifth Framework Programme. The vision for ESS was to
pioneer and validate a standard of methodology for crossnational surveys that had not been attempted anywhere in
the world hitherto. Its threefold objective was:
• to chart and explain long-term changes in attitude and
behaviour within and between European nations;
32
• to achieve and spread new standards of rigour in crossnational social measurement; and
• to develop robust social indicators of national
performance, capable of standing alongside existing
economic indicators.
Progress/achievements
“Six institutions from five Member States submitted
the proposal to the Commission to create a continuing
central database to be fed by biennial surveys conducted
simultaneously in all participating countries,” observes
Professor Roger Jowell of City University London, the
coordinator of the project.
“The project garnered widespread support from the
outset, also attracting funding from 22 national science
foundations. There was immediate recognition that this
would provide an invaluable source of data for academics
from a very broad range of social science disciplines,
as well as for politicians and civil servants, think tanks,
journalists and the public at large.”
After the successful completion of the key preparatory stages
(questionnaire design, translation and piloting), the first
round of data gathering took place in the autumn of 2002,
with the release in September 2003 of findings covering
22 nations, available to all on the web.
Since then, fieldwork for the second round has taken place
with participation now increased to 26 countries. In addition to
the 21 EU Member States, these include Norway, Switzerland,
Ukraine, Iceland and Turkey. Israel, too, took part in the first
round. The third round is now well under way.
The questionnaire comprises two complementary elements.
A top-down core element addresses change and persistence
in a range of social and demographic characteristics, attitudes
and behaviour patterns – including such aspects as trust in
institutions, socio-political values, moral and social values,
DESCARTES SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH PRIZE
2005
The team
The project coordinator, Professor Roger Jowell of City
University London (UK), worked together with Caroline
Bryson, Gillian Eva, Rory Fitzgerald, Ruth O’Shea and Caroline
Roberts of City University, Professor Peter Mohler, Sabine
Haeder, Janet Harkness and Achim Koch of the Zentrum für
Umfragen, Methoden und Analysen (ZUMA) in Mannheim
(Germany), Dr Ineke Stoop of the Sociaal en Cultureel
Planbureau (SCP) in Den Haag (The Netherlands), Professor
Willem Saris and Irmtraud Gallhofer of the Universiteit van
Amsterdam (The Netherlands), Professor Jaak Billiet and
Michel Philippens of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
(Belgium), Bjorn Henrichsen, Kirstine Kolsrud and Knut
Skjak of the Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD)
in Bergen (Norway), and Professor Max Kaase and Dr Henk
Stronkhorst of the European Science Foundation (ESF).
religious identity, welfare and security, and perceived quality
of life. A second, bottom-up element provides for rotating
topic-specific modules selected competitively in each round
in response to applications from multinational groups of EU
social scientists. This provides opportunities for in-depth
examinations of certain topics in certain years, such as
attitudes to immigration and citizenship or the work-family
balance. In addition, contextual variations between nations
and influential events, such as elections or natural disasters,
are recorded to assist data analysts in accounting for observed
differences between countries or rounds.
“The intention is not just to provide a snapshot, but, as survey
builds upon survey, to develop a unique long-term account
of change and development in the social fabric of modern
Europe,” Professor Jowell points out. “We also aim to improve
the consistency and quality of our methods round by round.
So far, the methodological and organisational innovations
introduced in our first and second rounds suggest that our
initial ambitious goals can be achieved.”
“The impact of ESS on European governance could be
profound,” he notes. “While other statistical agencies, such as
Eurostat, collect rigorous data about the social and economic
circumstances of EU Member States, they tend to avoid
comparable statistics about cultural and political attitudes
– how people think and feel about themselves and their world.
The role of the ESS is to fill that gap.”
Within 18 months of the public release of the first round data,
nearly 6 000 registered users had already begun analysing
the content and producing journal articles, dissertations
and books (seven books in as many languages had either
been published or were imminent). Now, with two datasets
available, the number of registered data users is approaching
10 000 and publications based on ESS data are burgeoning.
Interest has not been confined to Europe. A US foundation
funded Georgetown University to set up a national replica of
ESS, and the US National Science Foundation has arranged
visits by leading American academics to study its methods.
Further EC funding has now been awarded to establish the
ESS as a continuing Community infrastructure. Meanwhile,
preparation for round three is in hand, and work is proceeding
on the development of new Europe-wide national social
indicators. The initiative has already demonstrated that,
despite the formidable difficulties, public attitudes can be
measured across countries much more accurately than had
been envisaged. Such attitudes are of course critical to the
formation of public policy, especially in an era of falling
electoral participation and political engagement. So the
ESS will help to serve as an important tool for reducing the
democratic deficit and monitoring the health of democracy
in Europe.
Winning the prize
“As the only social science project so far ever to be awarded
this prestigious prize, it has come as a welcome and
unanticipated mark of respect from fellow scientists in very
different disciplines,” notes Professor Jowell. “The Descartes
Prize money is being used by our team to produce both a
major new database and a new jointly-authored book on
social survey methods.”
INFO
European social survey – innovations in comparative
measurement (ESS)
Category
Socio-economic sciences
Led by
City University
Northampton Square
EC1V 0HB London, United Kingdom
Contact information
Professor Roger Jowell
Tel: +44 (0)20 7040 4904
Fax: +44 (0)20 7040 4900
E-mail
[email protected]
Website
www.city.ac.uk
33
EXEL: EXTENDING ELECTROMAGNETISM THROUGH NOVEL ARTIFICIAL MATERIALS
Left-handed materials
bend the rules of physics
Around 40 years ago, the Russian scientist Victor Veselago came up with the
idea of ‘left-handed’ and ‘right-handed’ materials. Right-handed materials are
found all around us, but left-handed materials (LHMs) are not found in nature.
Veselago pointed out that LHMs could show interesting
optical properties when interacting with light. To
investigate this, researchers from Europe and the USA
collaborated to produce left-handed synthetic materials.
Now, the EXEL project has shown how the properties of
these new LHMs could lead to exciting new devices in
fields such as telecommunications and medical imaging.
The science
Much of human progress is based on our ability to bend
and shape light, so new ways of doing this cause much
excitement because of the possibilities for new and innovative
applications in many fields. The refractive index, n, that
explains how rainbows form, is a measure of a material’s
combined response to both the electric and the magnetic
components in radiation: the former is characterised by the
so-called ‘electrical permittivity’, ε, and the latter by the
‘magnetic permeability’, µ.
For all natural materials, n has a positive value. However,
approximately 40 years ago, the Russian scientist Veselago
envisaged so-called left-handed or negative index materials
(LHMs or NIMs), which have negative indices, as a result of
negative values for both ε and µ. But these negative index
materials’ existence was not proven for many years.
Some 30 years after Veselago’s original hypothesis, United
Kingdom theoretical physicist Sir John Pendry (Imperial
College of Science, Technology and Medicine) put forward
designs for two artificial ‘meta materials’, respectively
composed of non-magnetic metallic wire arrays and split
ring resonators (SRRs), which would meet the NIM criteria.
At La Jolla University, in the United States, Dr RA Shelby,
Professor David Smith, now at Duke University (US), and
Professor S Schultz combined SRRs and wires to produce
the first structure that could confirm, in experiments, the
existence of a negative index of refraction.
34
Progress/achievements
At first, the NIM concept was met with doubt and disbelief
from the scientific community at large, which argued
the impossibility of reversing established principles, such
as Snell’s law, Fermat’s principle and the Doppler effect.
However, the EXEL partners succeeded in refuting all of
the objections – and a rich new field of interdisciplinary
research was born.
“Having explored and explained the fundamental physics,
we moved towards developing modified designs that are
easier to fabricate, more compact and amenable to a wealth
of applications,” says EXEL (DAHLM) coordinator Professor
Costas Soukoulis, who is also a distinguished professor
at Iowa State University. “As well as tuneable wire-andring structures with nanoscale features, we were able to
demonstrate that photonic crystals, developed in the EXEL
consortium, can also act as NIMs.”
One exciting aspect of NIM behaviour is the ability of a
block of such material to function as a flat ‘superlens’.
Conventional curved lenses, which recombine divergent
incident electromagnetic rays at a fixed focal point, suffer
from one significant limitation. They are unable to resolve
detail that is finer than the wavelength of the radiation
itself (known as the ‘diffraction limit’). This is due to the
fact that they focus only the so called far-field components,
whereas near-field radiation – which decays within about
one wavelength distance from its propagation – is lost. In
principle, NIM lenses eliminate this shortcoming because
they are flat and thus their surface can be brought into
close contact with another material, unlike a curved lens
that only contacts at one point. This feature of NIM lenses
allows them to produce perfectly detailed images of objects
placed within one wavelength of their surface.
Given the present state of technology, NIM lenses cannot
yet be exploited for optical wavelengths (around 10-6 m). But
with further development, it could be feasible to achieve
DESCARTES SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH PRIZE
The team
The project was led by Professor Costas Soukoulis of the
Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser in Heraklion
(Greece), in collaboration with Professor Ekmel Ozbay of
Bilkent University (Turkey), Professor John Brian Pendry of
the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine,
South Kensington Campus (UK), Professor Martin Wegener
of the DFG-Center for Functional Nanostructures at the
University of Karlsruhe (Germany), and Professor David R.
Smith of Duke University (USA), supported by the IST-FET
project DAHLM (IST-2001-35511).
focal point sizes of only a few nanometres, almost two orders
of magnitude smaller than is possible with conventional
lenses. If so, the amount of information that can be stored
on DVDs would be vastly increased, and transistors with
features as small as 10 nm might also be made using optical
lithography.
Already, the United Kingdom team has shown how NIMs’
ability to focus radio waves could lead to smaller, better
performing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines.
Here, the wavelengths employed are in the region of a few
metres, so the whole imaging process takes place in the
near field.
With the support of industrial company Marconi Caswell,
Professor Pendry and his colleagues fabricated a NIM
comprising a roll of metallised film wound around an
inert plastic mandrel (dubbed a ‘Swiss roll’, because of its
structural resemblance to the popular jam-filled cake).
In a milestone experiment, they placed an array of ‘Swiss
rolls’ between an object they were trying to image – in this
case, a researcher’s thumb – and a small receiver coil in a
standard MRI device. Without the ‘Swiss rolls’, no image
could be detected by the coil. But when in place, they
functioned like a bundle of wires in directing the magnetic
flux towards the receiver, producing a clear picture of the
thumb’s internal structure.
A crucial feature of this material is that it consists of a
periodic array of structures, each of which is much smaller
than the wavelength of the radio-frequency fields it
focuses on. Work continues to further reduce the size of
the individual elements and thus optimise resolution.
2005
“There are many more potential uses,” adds Professor
Soukoulis. “Miniaturised NIMs could be manufactured into
antennas and wave guides that are 100 times smaller and much
lighter than those of today, transforming design in mobile
communications, aeronautical systems and other strategic
sectors. We can also produce materials that are totally nonreflecting over certain frequency ranges, regardless of the
angle of incident radiation. They represent the ultimate in
‘stealth’ technology for the defence community.”
“The EXEL team has been instrumental in establishing and
developing a revolutionary field, which extends the realm
of electromagnetism and opens up exciting technological
applications from the MHz range to optical frequencies,”
he concludes. “And this is just the start. More inventions
will come from hundreds of research groups working in the
new field of metamaterials, which owes its existence in
large part to the creativity of European researchers.”
After winning the Descartes Prize in 2005, the team has
managed to design and fabricate metamaterials and
measure experimentally that they have a negative index of
refraction at 1.5 microns with relatively small losses. “We
have also managed to get a negative n at 780 nm, but the
losses are larger,” Professor Soukoulis explains.
Winning the prize
“Most of the groups in our Descartes team decided to use
the grant for research,” says Professor Soukoulis, adding
that the prize money helped his group to work even more
at an international level: “We used it to hire post-docs from
countries outside Europe and for travel outside Europe.”
INFO
Extending electromagnetism through novel artificial
materials (EXEL)
Category
Basic Sciences
Led by
Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser (IESL)
Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH)
PO Box 1527 Vassilika Vouton 7
1110 Heraklion, Greece
Contact information
Professor Costas Soukoulis
Tel: +30 2810 391303
Fax: +30 2810 391305
E-mail
[email protected]
Website
www.iesl.forth.gr
35
PULSE: THE IMPACT OF EUROPEAN PULSAR SCIENCE ON MODERN PHYSICS
Finding the astrophysical
Holy Grail: J0737-3039
In 2003, a group of European scientists made a discovery that has been hailed
as one of the greatest advances in astrophysics.
Pulsars are rapidly spinning neutron stars, often described
as ‘cosmic clocks’, whose observation offers unparalleled
opportunities to study some of the most extreme physical
conditions in the universe. By pooling resources and sharing
their results, the project partners propelled themselves to
the forefront of this stellar field of research.
The science
A pulsar is a small, rapidly spinning and highly magnetised
neutron star resulting from the violent collapse of a massive
star in a supernova explosion that can light up the sky, even
though it may occur at the other side of our galaxy. The Crab
Nebula, the remnants of a supernova explosion recorded by
Chinese astronomers in 1054 AD, shone four times brighter
than Venus and could be seen in daylight. At the heart of
the Crab Nebula is a pulsar. A sizeable fraction of the preexisting giant star condensed into a body typically measuring
only 20 km across. As a result, pulsars are incredibly dense;
a piece of pulsar matter the size of a pinhead would weigh
more than the largest ocean-going super tanker!
In addition, as they rotate, they emit powerful directional
beams of electromagnetic waves from their magnetic poles.
When the Earth lies in the direction of these emissions,
they can be observed by radio telescopes as pulses. These
repeat with the regularity of a super-accurate clock whose
ticking is set by the neutron star spin-period, ranging from
a few milliseconds to seconds.
The rewards for finding and observing pulsars can be
huge. Monitoring apparent variations in pulse-rates
makes it possible to test theories of relativity, follow their
precise motion in space, explore the solid-state physics of
superdense matter, study the properties of superfluid and
superconducting materials, investigate extreme plasma
physics, and more.
“Rarely does a single class of objects lend itself to highprecision experiments in so many domains of modern and
fundamental physics,” enthuses PULSE project coordinator
Professor Andrew Lyne, from the Jodrell Bank Observatory
36
of Manchester University in the United Kingdom. “The
problem is that pulsars are weak radio sources, subject
to dispersion effects during their passage through the
interstellar medium. To study them, we need large and
sensitive radio telescopes equipped with sophisticated data
acquisition systems for fast sampling – and these are costly
to build and run.”
Progress/achievements
In the early 1990s, Europe was home to four of the world’s
seven telescopes with major pulsar programmes. Yet, despite
a degree of co-operation, the responsible groups had each
developed individual hardware and software facilities
tailored to their own particular requirements.
“We eventually concluded that a closer partnership would
allow us to benefit from collaborative instrumentation
and software efforts, sharing of expertise and training
opportunities, and coordination of observing programmes,”
Professor Lyne recalls. “We therefore founded the European
Pulsar Network (EPN), which was approved in 1994 and funded
under the EU Human Capital and Mobility programme.”
By 1997, the EPN members had finalised development of a
common data format and set up a database to accommodate
all observational feedback in a single web-based archive,
accessible to all. A year later, they had begun routine,
simultaneous multi-frequency, single-pulse observations
with the aid of the 100-metre-class instruments in Germany,
Italy, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
However, while the European instruments were ideal for
developing and testing new techniques, the best prospects
of finding new examples lay in searching the centre of our
disc-like galaxy – which required a viewpoint in the southern
hemisphere. For this, EPN sought the collaboration of the
Australian Telescope National Facility (ATNF), which operates
a 64-metre-telescope in Parkes, New South Wales.
With this added facility onboard, new sightings came thick
and fast. Low-frequency surveys logged large numbers of
previously unknown millisecond pulsars, which are proving
DESCARTES SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH PRIZE
The team
The project leader, Professor Andrew Lyne from the Jodrell
Bank Observatory of Manchester University (UK), worked
together with Professor Nicolò D’Amico of the Osservatorio
Astronomico di Cagliari (Italy), Dr Axel Jessner of the Max
Planck Institut für Radioastronomie in Bonn (Germany), Dr
Ben Stappers of ASTRON (The Netherlands), and Professor
Ioannis Seiradakis of the University of Thessaloniki (Greece).
2005
“The large orbital velocity, small orbital separation, high
orbital inclination and visibility of pulsations from both
the stars ensures the occurrence of significant ‘relativistic
effects’,” Professor D’Amico explains. “Within only 18 months
of timing measurements taking place, the team was able
to make the most accurate confirmation yet of Albert
Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Moreover, visibility of
both pulsars at the same time allowed direct measurement
of their mass ratio, which has never before been done for
double neutron star binaries.”
The future is even more intriguing. Among other exciting
implications, the discovery revitalises the possibility of
detecting gravitational waves, which are faint ripples in
space-time predicted by Einstein. What is more, the fact that
the orbital plane is almost edge-on has made the double
pulsar a unique laboratory for studying electrodynamics and
plasma physics under the most extreme conditions.
to be particularly valuable in detecting the cosmological
gravitational wave background – originating from a time
when the universe expanded rapidly after the ‘big bang’.
In a bid to reveal previously undetectable pulsars, the team
also embarked on a sensitive high-frequency survey. They
equipped Parkes with a 13-beam-receiver system which
was developed jointly by Jodrell Bank and the Italian INAF
Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari in collaboration with the
ATNF. In a massive experimental undertaking over five years,
this co-operation enabled them to locate over 850 pulsars,
more than the total number found in all surveys spanning
30 years prior. Furthermore, a deep search of globular clusters
(gravitationally bound concentrations of approximately
100 000 very old stars, of which our galaxy has around 200)
produced more significant findings, which have triggered ongoing investigations by many groups around the world.
PULSE’s crowning achievement to date, however, was the
discovery, in 2003, of the first-known double pulsar. The
existence of such a system is remarkable, since its two
components needed to have survived twin supernova
explosions. Its detection was fortuitous, given an astronomically
brief lifespan of a few tens of millions of years.
“The original Parkes multibeam survey concentrated on the
Galactic plane,” notes Professor Nicolò D’Amico of INAF.
“To probe the distribution of pulsars which are nearby or
have millisecond periods, we also searched higher Galactic
latitudes and longitudes. It was in this new survey that we
discovered the 23-ms pulsar J0737-3039A, which proved to
be in a very short-period orbit (2.4-hour) with a companion.
The neutron star nature of this companion was confirmed with
our discovery of 2.7-s pulsations from the same system.
“Our work increases mankind’s knowledge of some of the
fundamental physical laws that govern the Universe,”
Professor Lyne concludes. “These results are not only of
relevance to today’s scientific professionals. They also help
stimulate young peoples’ interest in astronomy, physics
and basic research, forming an important foundation for a
society increasingly based on science and technology.”
Winning the prize
“The discovery of the double pulsar was the culmination of
many years of technical developments at both the Jodrell
Bank and Parkes Observatories”, says Professor Lyne. “It
is very pleasing to see this work and its exciting results
recognised internationally.”
INFO
Pulsar science in Europe: the impact of European
pulsar science on modern physics (PULSE)
Category
Basic Sciences
Led by
University of Manchester
Jodrell Bank Observatory (JBO)
Oxford Road, M13 9PL Manchester, United Kingdom
Contact information
Professor Andrew Lyne
Tel: +44 (0)1477 571321
Fax: +44 (0)1477 571618
E-mail
[email protected]
Website
www.jb.man.ac.uk
37
THE GRAND JURY
Descartes Research Prize 2006
Grand Jury Members
Dr Claudie Haigneré
Astronaut and neuroscientist
President of the Grand Jury 2006
Senior Adviser to director-general of the European Space Agency
A medical doctor and neuroscientist by training, Claudie Haigneré is a senior adviser to the
director-general of the European Space Agency. She is also a faculty member at the French
Academy of Technology, the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) and the Academie des
Sports. Dr Haigneré is the only professional woman astronaut in Europe. She has taken part in two
space missions: the first scientific mission (Cassiopée) aboard MIR, the Russian space station, in
1996, and another (Andromede) on the International Space Station in 2001. Dr Haigneré is also a
qualified station and spacecraft flight engineer and a cosmonaut rescuer for Soyuz. She became a
member of the European Astronaut Corps on joining the ESA in 1999. She has held two ministerial
posts in the French government: Research and New Technologies (2002-2004) and European
Affairs (2004-2005). She has been decorated by the French state, receiving the prestigious Officier
de la Légion d’Honneur and Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite. She has also received the
Russian Order of Friendship between the Peoples, and another for Personal Valour.
Professor
Jan Balzarini
Medicine
2001 Descartes Prize winner
38
Professor at the School of Medicine, KU Leuven, Belgium
Jan Balzarini is on the board of directors of the International Society for Antiviral Research and
professor at the Rega Institute for Medical Research. He studied biology and bioengineering
at the KU Leuven in Belgium. In 1984, he obtained a doctorate in bioengineering. He attended
the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, for a post-doctorate focusing on the
discovery and pharmacology of novel medicines against HIV. Back at the Rega Institute, he
further expanded his antiviral research, coordinated a variety of research networks sponsored
by the European Commission, and was at the core of the discovery of an entirely novel class of
therapeutics for HIV and hepatitis B. He won a Descartes Prize in 2001 the Blaise Pascal Medal
of the European Academy of Sciences in 2003, and the Sanofi-Aventis Award of the American
Society of Microbiology in 2006. Jan Balzarini is currently head of the Laboratory of Virology and
Chemotherapy at the Rega Institute.
DESCARTES SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH PRIZE
2006
Professor
Marcia C. Barbosa
Professor at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil
Born and educated in Porto Alegre, Brazil, Marcia Barbosa’s career includes research
in statistical physics, with particular application in the study of phase transitions in
complex fluids. She is the head of the Complex Fluids Group at the UFRGS. Besides her
own research, she has been active in gender studies and organisations promoting gender
equity. She chairs the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics’ Working Group on
Women in Physics.
Professor
Tatiana Birshtein
Principal Research Scientist, the Institute of Macromolecular Compounds,
the Russian Academy of Science (IMC RAS), St Petersburg, Russia
Biochemistry
Physics/mathematics
Born and educated in Leningrad (presently St Petersburg), Tatiana Birshtein’s scientific career
has been connected with the IMC RAS since 1958. She is the author of a monograph entitled
“Conformations of macromolecules”, with OB Ptitsyn (issued in 1964 in Russian and later translated
and published abroad), and more than 250 papers in the field of the statistical mechanics of
polymeric systems. For many years, she has been the group leader in International and Russian
Grants. She has sat on the editorial board of several polymeric journals: Macromolecular Theory
and Simulations (1992-2002), Polymer Science (Russian, 1988-1999), Acta Polymerica (19901999) and Biophysical Chemistry (1983-1997). Professor Birshtein has received a large number
of awards, including Honoured Professor, Honoured Research Scientist for the Best Scientific
Publication in Russia in 2000, and the Medal for the Defence of Leningrad (1944).
Professor
Jean-Patrick
Connerade
Professor at the Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine, London,
and President of EuroScience
Professor
Yves Coppens
Professor at the Collége de France and Chair of Palaeoanthropology and Prehistory
at the Collége de France
Palaeontology
Born and educated in France, Yves Coppens’ long career includes a research stint at the National
Scientific Research Centre, some 14 years at the National Museum of Natural History as professor
and chair of anthropology, a directorship at the Museum of Man, membership of the French, Italian
and Belgian Academies of Science, as well as other prestigious organisations. He has carried out
a wide range of field research in Chad, Ethiopia, the Maghreb, Asia, Russia and more. Professor
Coppens has around 800 publications to his name, has won several European and international
awards, and has earned honorary doctorates from universities in Italy, Belgium and the USA.
Professor
Pierre Coullet
Professor at the University of Nice, France, and Senior Member of the Institut
Universitaire de France
Biology
Physics
Physics
Jean-Patrick Connerade’s distinguished career spans nearly 40 years, starting as a state scholar
in physics at Imperial College, London, in 1965, and culminating in his ongoing presidency of the
renowned EuroScience Association. In between, he has researched atomic physics in the UK, in
France and in Germany, and has taught at institutions in London, Paris and Bonn. He has served
on numerous committees – including the Synchrotron Radiation Committees of the Science and
Engineering Research Council and of the Laboratoire LURE in Orsay. Professor Connerade has
been Honorary Editor of the Journal of Physics B. Among other things, he joined the Association
of Scientists in St Petersburg, was elected fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and to the
Council of Physics College of the EPSRC on two occasions. He also serves on the External Advisory
Group for the Commission’s Marie Curie Actions.
Pierre Coullet’s association with the Descartes Prize began in 2001, as panel president for the basic
sciences section. He was a researcher at France’s Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
(CNRS) between 1975 and 1987. He co-founded the Institut Non-Linéaire de Nice in 1991, which
he headed between 1995 and 2002. He also founded and heads the Insitut Robert Hooke. He has
won several awards, including Germany’s highest, the Humboldt Prize, and sits on various science
panels, including that of the Institut Universitaire de France. His long list of publications in the
fields of dynamical systems, chaos, turbulence and self-organisation (in fluids, liquid crystal,
chemical reaction and biological systems) includes many major peer-reviewed journals.
39
Professor Patrick
Cunningham
Professor of Animal Genetics at Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland
Professor Ayse Erzan
Professor, Department of Physics, Istanbul Technical University, Turkey
Physics
Ayse Erzan is a professor at Istanbul Technical University’s Department of Physics. Professor
Erzan was born and educated in Turkey, as well as the United States. She spent many years in
Portugal, Germany and The Netherlands doing research in statistical physics as well as teaching.
She has been at the physics department of the Istanbul Technical University for the last 16 years,
and is also associated with the Feza Gursey Institute for Basic Research. She is a member of the
Turkish Academy of Sciences, the Palestine Academy for Science and Technology and TWAS, the
Academy of Sciences for the Developing World. She has served on the editorial boards of various
scientific journals and on the IUPAP Committee for Statistical Physics, as well as on human rights
and ethics committees. She was the 2003 laureate from Europe of the L’Oreal-UNESCO prize for
Women in Science. She also won the annual prize of the Scientific and Technological Research
Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) in 1997.
Dr Cristina Gavrilovici
Member of the Bioethics Committee, Romanian College of Physicians, Romania
Genetics
Bioethics and medicine
Dr Cristina Gavrilovici has a background in bioethics and medicine, having acquired a PhD cum laude
in medicine (paediatrics) and a Master of Arts in bioethics. She completed her training in Romania
and the United States. Currently, she is a member of the Romanian Bioethics Committee and her
main areas of interest are research ethics, ethical issues in genetic technologies and procreative
liberties. She has published in both paediatric nephrology research and bioethics domains.
Professor Andrzej
Górski
Professor, the Medical University of Warsaw (MUW), Poland
Professor
Elmars Grens
Scientific Director, the Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Centre, Latvia
Medicine and bioethics
Biomedicine
Genetics/biology
40
Patrick Cunningham was formerly deputy director (research) at the Irish National Agriculture and
Food Research Institute (1980-1988), visiting professor at the Economic Development Institute
of the World Bank (1988), and director of the Animal Production and Health Division of the UN’s
Food and Agriculture Organisation (1990-1993). He has published extensively on the genetics of
domesticated animals. He is co-founder and chairman of the biotechnology company IdentiGEN. He
has been president of the European and World Associations of Animal Production, and served on the
European Life Sciences Group which advised former Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin.
Born in Poland, Andrzej Górski studied medicine at the MUW. Between 1974 and 1976, he was
a Fulbright scholar at the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research in New York (USA). His
major research interests focus on immunology, transplantation and bacteriophages. Between
1996 and 1999, he was rector of the MUW. Professor Górski has organised seven international
conferences in the field of ethics in science, and currently chairs the bioethics commission at
the Polish Ministry of Health. He is a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences (and is also
the director of the L Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy there) and the
Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Born and educated in Latvia, Elmars Grens graduated from the University of Latvia’s faculty of
chemistry, and is currently a professor of molecular biology at the same university. He is a member
of the Latvian Academy of Sciences, the Russian Academy of Sciences and Academia Europaea.
Professor Grens is also a member of the Latvian Science Council and the Strategic Analysis
Commission. His main research interests are in the field of biomedicine, namely gene structure and
expression, molecular virology, gene and protein engineering, and recombinant biotechnology.
DESCARTES SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH PRIZE
2006
Professor Nouzha
Guessous Idrissi
Professor of Medical Parasitology and Chair of UNESCO’s International Bioethics
Committee
Medicine and bioethics
Educated in Morocco and France, Nouzha Guessous Idrissi has been teaching and carrying out
research in the field of medical parasitology for some 28 years, as a Professor at the Medical
Faculty of Casablanca University and the former head of the Diagnosis and Research Laboratory
at the University Hospital of Casablanca. Her wide lab and field research in Morocco has covered
such topics as leishmaniasis and the interaction between parasites and their environment. Since
1999, she has been acting as an expert for the UN-sponsored Special Programme for Research
and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR). Concomitantly, Professor Idrissi is a founding member
of the Moroccan Organisation of Human Rights, a consultant for women rights NGOs, and a
member of the Royal Advisory Commission for the Revision of the Moroccan Family Code. She has
also been dedicating more of her attention to the field of bioethics. In Morocco, she is a member
of the Ethics Committee for Biomedical Research and of the Moroccan Association for Bioethics.
Internationally, she has sat on UNESCO’s International Bioethics Committee since 2000 – she
became vice-chair in 2002 and the Chair in December 2005.
Professor Lucia
Mendonça Previato
Institute of Biophysics Carlos Chagas Filho, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Professor
Gretty M. Mirdal
Professor, Transcultural and Clinical Psychology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Microbiology
Psychology
Professor
Wubbo Ockels
Engineering and astronautics
Lucia Mendonça Previato was born and educated in Brazil. From 1972 to 1976, she undertook
her graduate studies at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, where she was awarded a PhD
in microbiology and immunology. In the late 1970s, she did post-doctoral work on carbohydrate
chemistry at the National Research Council of Canada, Saskatoon and on glycobiology at the
Department of Biochemistry, University of California, Berkeley (USA). In 1980, she established
a Surface Structure of Micro-organisms Laboratory at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro’s
Institute of Microbiology, which she directed until taking up her present position, in 2001, at
the Carlos Chagas Filho Institute of Biophysics’ Laboratory of Glycobiology, located at the same
university. Her honours include the National Research Council of Brazil’s Top Research Career
Investigator (1986); the Petrobras Award’s National Invention Prize (1987); the Rio de Janeiro State
Award for Biological Sciences (1999); the National Order of Merit in Science (Ordem Nacional do
Mérito Científico) (2001); and the L’Oréal-UNESCO Laureate for Latin America (2004). Dr Previato
has been the editor-in-chief of Annals of the Brazilian Academy of Science since 2003.
Gretty M. Mirdal is professor of transcultural and clinical psychology at the University of
Copenhagen. She is an expert in the areas of mental and physical health in migration and health
psychology. Professor Mirdal is also involved in international research policy and administration
at the highest level. She chairs the Standing Committee for Humanities at the European
Science Foundation, is a member of the board of the Danish Research Foundation (Danmarks
Grundforskningsfond), and sits on the European Research Advisory Board (EURAB). Professor
Mirdal is the former chair of the Committee for the Humanities and Social Sciences at France’s
Agence Nationale de la Recherche, as well as a former member of the Scientific Board of France’s
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and of the grand jury of the Institut Universitaire de
France. She is a fellow of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters.
Chair, Aerospace for Sustainable Engineering and Technology at Delft University of
Technology, The Netherlands
Born in The Netherlands, Wubbo Ockels holds ESTEC’s professorial chair in the aerospace
engineering faculty at the Technical University Delft. He completed a doctorate in physics and
mathematics at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands) in 1978 on the basis of work at
its Nuclear Physics Accelerator Institute. Shortly after, the European Space Agency chose him
as a payload specialist to train for the Spacelab-1 mission at the US space agency NASA. He
performed this task on the successful 1985 Spacelab D-1 mission, launched on-board the space
shuttle Challenger. In addition to his ESTEC duties, he has been involved in ESA’s future manned
space flight activities, the Columbus programme and the International Space Station. He advised
the Department of Automation and Informatics in The Netherlands and initiated the Agency’s
education programme.
41
Professor Mary Osborn Max Planck scientist and past president of the International Union of Biochemistry
Molecular biology
and Molecular Biology
Dr Rossella
Palomba
Director of Research at the National Research Council, Italy
Dr Nadia Rosenthal
Biology
Head of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Monterotondo
Outstation, Italy
Professor Karen Siune
Director, the Danish Centre for Studies in Research and Research Policy
Demography
Social sciences
42
Born in the UK, Mary Osborn studied physics at the University of Cambridge (UK) and obtained her
PhD in biophysics from Penn State University (USA). Later career stages took her to Harvard (USA),
to the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge (UK), to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (USA)
and then to the Max Planck Institute for biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen (DE), where she also
became honorary professor in the medical faculty at the Georg August University (DE). She was
awarded the Meyenburg Prize and the L’Oréal/UNESCO Prize for her work on cytoskeletal and
nuclear proteins in animal cells. Professor Osborn is a member of the European Molecular Biology
Organisation and holds an honorary doctorate from the Pomerian Medical Academy in Sczeczin
(PL). She was a trustee of the Swedish Foundation on the Environment, MISTRA, and has chaired
both the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg,
and the Cell Biology Section of Academia Europaea. From 2003 to 2006, Professor Osborn was
the president of the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (IUBMB), an
organisation representing biochemists and molecular biologists in 72 countries.
Italian Rossella Palomba is head of the Department of Population, Social Behaviour and Policies at
the National Institute for Population Research and Social Policies in Rome, Italy. Her main fields of
interest are related to the analysis of changes in family structure and behaviour, couple formation
and dissolution, fertility, and gender roles. Dr Palomba was a member of the National Committee
for Sociology, Statistics and Economy, the National Committee for the Environment, and the
Italian Representative on the European Commission-appointed Committee on Human Potential
and Mobility. She was vice-president of UNESCO’s European Observatory on Population Education
and Information. She also held the presidency of the Italian Committee for Valorisation of Women
in Science. Dr Palomba has written ten books and more than 150 articles in international and
national scientific journals. She is also the Italian Ambassador for Equal Opportunities in Science.
Born in the United States, Nadia Rosenthal was awarded a PhD in 1981 from Harvard Medical
School and trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health. She moved to
EMBL from the Cardiovascular Research Center at Harvard, where she directed a biomedical
research laboratory at the Massachusetts General Hospital. She served on the editorial staff at
the New England Journal of Medicine, where she was a consultant on molecular medicine and
editor of the molecular medicine series. Since her arrival in Europe in 2001 to direct the EMBL
Mouse Biology Unit in Rome, Dr Rosenthal has become a member of EMBO, and was awarded
the Ferrari-Soave Prize in Cell Biology from the University of Turin. She has served on numerous
EU grant review and prize committees, advisory panels and editorial boards. She also holds a
professorship in cardiovascular science at Imperial College London (UK). Professor Rosenthal’s
research focuses on developmental genetics, the molecular biology of ageing and the role of stem
cells in tissue regeneration.
Karen Siune has headed the Danish Centre for Studies in Research and Research Policy – which she
helped build up between 1997 and 2003 – since 2004. Her areas of research interest include the role
of science in society, comparative research policy studies and citizens’ attitudes towards science.
During her successful career, Professor Siune has held various faculty positions at the universities
of Aarhus (DK) and Michigan (USA). She has also sat on several Danish government commissions.
Between 2002 and 2006, she chaired the Science and Society Advisory Group connected to the
Sixth Framework Programme for Research. From 1995 to 2001, Professor Siune was vice-president
of the European Advisory Committee on Statistical Information in the economic and social spheres.
She has also been involved in a number of EU-funded research programmes.
DESCARTES SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH PRIZE
Professor
Edward P.J.
van den Heuvel
Professor at the University of Amsterdam (UA), The Netherlands
Dr Georges
Vassiliou
Businessman, Visiting Professor, Politician, Cyprus
Astronomy
2002 Descartes Prize winner
Economics
2006
Until 2005, Edward P.J. van den Heuvel had chaired The Netherlands Foundation for Research in
Astronomy for nine years. He has been a professor of Astrophysics at UA since 1974, and was
director of the Astronomical Institute and the Centre for High Energy Astrophysics until January
2005. He has carried out astrophysical research at the universities of Utrecht (NL), Brussels (BE),
California (Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara) in the United States and at the Institute for Advanced
Study in Princeton (USA). He led the team which was awarded the 2002 Descartes Prize for
the discovery of the places of origin of giant cosmic explosions producing the cosmic bursts of
gamma-ray radiation.
Born in Famagusta, Cyprus, Georges Vassiliou has a degree and doctorate in economics from
the University of Economics in Budapest. Back in Cyprus, after a few years of work in the UK as
a market researcher, he established his own company, Middle East Marketing Research Bureau,
which provided market research and consultancy services in the Middle East, and from 1990
onwards in Central and Eastern Europe. The company presently covers the whole area with offices
in 30 countries. In 1988, he was elected president of the Republic of Cyprus, serving until 1993.
In 1998, he was appointed chief negotiator and coordinator of Cyprus’ effort to join the EU. He
established the University of Cyprus and the Cyprus Institute of Management and, since 1987,
has been a visiting professor at Cranfield University in the UK.
During its six-year history, the Descartes Prize has also been honoured by contributions from:
Membership
Professor Ene Ergma
Former President of the Descartes Grand Jury
and former President of the X Riigikogu,
the Estonian Parliament (2003-2006), currently Vice-President
2003-2005
Dr Leo Esaki
Nobel Prize winner in Physics (1973)
2004-2005
Professor José Mariano Gago
Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, Portugal 2003
Professor Helena Ilnerová
President, Czech Academy of Sciences
2001-2004
Mr Pantelis Kyriakides
Vice-President, European Patent Office
2000-2004
Sir John Maddox
Former editor of Nature
2000-2002
Dr Ulf Merbold
Former astronaut and former coordinator of the International
Space Station at the European Space Agency
2000-2002
and 2005
Dr Yves Michot
President, Défense Conseil Internationale
former President of ‘Aérospatiale’ (France)
and former President of the Descartes Grand Jury
2000-2002
Professor Helga Nowotny
Chair, European Research Advisory Board
2003-2004
Professor Nikolaï Platé
Vice-President, Russian Academy of Sciences
2000-2004
Dr Anna C. Roosevelt
Professor of Anthropology, University of Illinois, USA
2000-2003
Professor Margarita Salas
Falgueras
Research Professor at the Spanish Research Council (CSIC)
and former President of the Institute of Spain (1995-2003)
2001
Ion Siotis
Former Research Director at the National Centre for Science
Research ‘Demokritos’ in Athens, Greece
2002-2005
Dr Susan Solomon
Senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) Boulder, Colorado
2005
Mr Rudi Thomaes
President and CEO, Alcatel Bell
2001-2003
43
SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH
David Attenborough’s
wild life
For half a century, Sir David Attenborough has been entertaining and
informing millions of television viewers across the world with his nature
documentaries. His work is recognised as the gold standard of the genre.
Whether the film documents plant life, bird habitats, the
living planet, mammals, underwater life, or any one of his
nearly 20 major titles, he maintains that any commentary
accompanying the images must be scientifically reliable.
But he does admit that filming wildlife sometimes
necessitates a degree of creativity.
Filming a potentially dangerous animal, such as a polar
bear emerging from its winter den, is technically possible
using modern lenses, but recording sound is a problem. To
replicate the noise a bear makes as it rubs itself on fresh
snow, sound editors used custard in a bag. Without sound,
the final result would lack something, Sir David notes.
Much of his broadcasting work has been of enormous help
to other scientists, particularly his hands-on filming of
natural phenomenon never before witnessed in the wild.
Through his books and TV work, he has masterfully blended
the beauty of the natural world with a dedication to the
scientific facts – i.e. evolutionary exegesis, anatomical
explanations and ethological studies.
The history
Although an honours graduate in zoology, Attenborough
admits that, after more than 50 years in the television
business, his view of science is from the other side of the
fence. He joined British public broadcaster, the BBC, in
1952. Two years later, he launched the first of his famous
Zoo Quest series which, over the next ten years, took him
to the wilder parts of the world.
Captivating audiences in Britain with the first-ever pictures
of the bird of paradise displaying in the wild, Attenborough
started a revolution in nature documentary-making for
television. Today, technology is better, budgets are bigger
and distances travelled take hours instead of weeks, but
serious nature film-makers still follow his model of beauty,
originality and scientific rigour.
His pioneering attitude went beyond nature programming
and, as controller of BBC2, he was responsible for
introducing colour television into the UK in 1965. But he
is best known for his nature programmes and, over the
years, has produced a number of landmark series.
These include the innovative 2002 series entitled The Life
of Mammals. An estimated 500 million people worldwide
watched the 13-part series Life on Earth, first broadcast in
1979. At the time, it was the most ambitious series ever
produced by the BBC’s Natural History Unit.
44
DESCARTES SCIENCE COMMUNICATION PRIZE
2004
Progress/achievements
chance to shine by the BBC, he is a committed advocate of
public broadcasting.
David Attenborough maintains that science television
requires a careful blend of scientific rigour, technology and
creativity. “Today, film-makers regularly use equipment
from various branches of science,” he says. “Filming wildlife
necessitates a small or a great degree of creativity.”
“Commercial networks are there to make money by
advertising and I cannot blame them for scheduling
programmes that bring profits,” he notes. “If a nation
decides that there should be public service networks, then
there will be more scientific programmes. If it decides
there are to be no public service networks, then they will
simply die out.”
He believes that the public view of science is mixed. “People
all over the world accept the benefits of science without a
thought. But when things go wrong for some reason, they
dismiss the whole of science as a folly.”
The veteran film-maker is unflattering about the general
quality of scientific communications. “We have done a very
bad job until now of communicating science. The level of
ignorance in this matter is dreadful and widespread.
“The secret is not in the scientific issue but in how you
present this issue. If you want to trigger the public’s
interest in science, you have to make science interesting,”
he insists.
Winning the prize
Who made the
nomination?
This submission was made by the Royal Society, the UK’s
national academy of science which supports top young
scientists, engineers and technologists, influences science
policy, debates scientific issues with the public, and much
more. Sir David Attenborough won its 2003 Michael Faraday
Award. The Royal Society promotes science and technology
by funding researchers and stimulating international interaction through various grants facilities.
www.royalsoc.ac.uk
Although David Attenborough has won a stream of awards
throughout his long career, he was thrilled and honoured to
receive his Descartes Prize which he picked up in person at
the ceremony in Prague in December 2004.
Among his other awards, in 1985 he received a knighthood
from the UK’s Queen Elizabeth II, and he was given the Order
of Merit in 2005. He has also won a number of prestigious
awards, including a Fellowship of the Royal Society which
first introduced Attenborough’s works to the Descartes Prize
organisers. He was a Trustee of the British Museum, and
the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and President of the Royal
Society for Nature Conservation.
Science and society
implications
Television is the number one source of information, both
scientific and general, for the majority of people. That
means the small screen has a powerful role to play in
improving the public’s awareness of science.
But, in a rapidly commercialising TV environment, David
Attenborough fears the gradual extinction of high-quality,
high-budget science programmes. Having been given the
INFO
Sir David Attenborough
Category
Professional scientists engaged in science
communication towards the public
Contact Information
Sir David Attenborough can be reached via the
Royal Society, London, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)20 7451 2500
Fax: +44 (0)20 7930 2170
E-mail
[email protected]
Website
www.royalsoc.ac.uk
Learn more...
Half a century of television
You can learn more about David Attenborough’s
long and distinguished television career on the
BBC website: www.bbc.co.uk/nature/programmes/
who/david_attenborough.shtml
45
INTO PEOPLE’S HEARTS
One scientist’s inspirational
motto
Wolfgang Heckl is a member of a rare breed, the scientist-entertainer.
This youthful and enthusiastic scientist brings hard science softly to the
ground so that everyone can appreciate it.
He may have a high-powered position as professor
of experimental physics and as a nano-scientist at
Germany’s Ludwig Maximilian University, but he is also an
accomplished media performer whose renown stretches
beyond scientific circles.
Seen on television, in glossy magazines and talking to
children in schools, his calling is to pull science out of
its ivory tower. In his many dealings with the media, he
frequently tackles the question: what is nanoscience?
Through experience teaching physics, he learned the best
way to explain complex scientific ideas is to make them
relevant to the audience. In the magazine Brigitte, he
defined nanotechnology as the formula for the emergence
of life – a study of molecules and nanoparticles or
“physical dwarfs”.
He backs up his definitions with creative examples, such as
non-stick surfaces that mimic natural materials and new
treatments for serious diseases using nano-molecules.
The history
With hundreds of peer-reviewed articles, conferences and
book contributions, reports and monographs to his name,
plus countless interviews and citations in the mainstream
press, Heckl has become a household name in Germany
and even abroad.
He has participated in television and radio programmes
and writes regularly for German newspapers and popular
46
science magazines. He is also an avid painter and, through
such projects as his ‘Atomic Landscape’ music, is building
bridges between the sciences and arts. Perhaps his most
unusual accolade is being in the Guinness Book of Records
for creating the smallest man-made hole.
In recognition of his unique ability to convey, in simple
terms, his scientific activities to the public, Heckl won
the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) 2002
Communicator Award for scientists, sponsored by the
Donor’s Association. In addition to his posts in academia,
he is head of the Deutsches Museum in Munich.
DESCARTES SCIENCE COMMUNICATION PRIZE
2004
But science is there to serve society, he maintains.
“Science is not worth it, if it is not for the benefit of
society, and this is only possible, if we include a dialogue
with European citizens.”
He urges scientists to be proactive and communicate the
risks and opportunities of their field. “Society can only
decide if informed... We have to be honest and tell the
public if there are things we do not know.”
Who made the
nomination?
Progress/achievements
Wolfgang Heckl says that imparting the wonders of
science, especially to young people, gives him great joy.
He wants to continue developing his communication
skills, bringing nanobiotechnology to life using different
media to communicate and involve people in the learning
experience.
This submission was made by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), the German central, self-governing
research organisation for promoting research at universities
and other publicly financed institutions in Germany. It
serves all branches of science and the humanities by
funding research projects and facilitating co-operation
among researchers. Wolfgang Heckl won its 2002 DFG
Communicator Award.
www.dfg.de
INFO
Into people’s hearts by Wolfgang Heckl
Winning the prize
Adding a communication prize to the collaborative research
prize is a perfect complement to achieving the EU’s goal
of raising awareness of both its activities and science per
se. Like Heckl’s work, it now gets the message across, in a
clear and engaging way, about the importance of science by
reinforcing the best examples of it! Receiving the prize was
a great honour, the German science communicator said at
the Descartes Award Ceremony in Prague.
Science and society
implications
Communication is a vital component of the research
process, argues Heckl. “Innovation needs communication,”
he observes. “Science is a unifying culture in Europe.
Education and science must be the highest priority.
Science literacy is the answer to many problems we are
facing today.”
Category
Professional scientists engaged in science
communication towards the public
Contact Information
GeoBioCenter, Department of Geo- and
Environmental Sciences, Ludwig Maximilian
University, Munich, Germany
Tel/Fax: +49 (0)89 2180 4331
E-mail
[email protected]
Website
www.nano-science.de
Learn more...
Wolfgang Heckl is also the general director of
the Deutsches Museum which is a rich source
of information on a wide range of scientific
subjects, with comprehensive archives,
multimedia displays, as well as research and
education facilities and programmes. Founded
in 1903, the museum has many permanent
exhibitions on topics ranging from aerospace to
energy technology, as well as a full programme
of temporary exhibitions covering all manner
of subjects, usually supported by English
information and captions.
www.deutsches-museum.de/e_index.htm
47
NETWORK OF YOUTH EXCELLENCE
Hungarian students enter
lab life
Since 1996, the Hungarian Research Student Movement has been giving
thousands of high-school students a taste of real lab life by opening the door
for them to work with some of the country’s top scientific research teams.
Professor Peter Csermely, a successful Hungarian molecular
biologist and network scientist, saw that science and
research were not teacher-centred subjects and that
students need to be more involved. In 1996, he launched
the Hungarian Research Student Movement to whet the
scientific appetites of young high-school students.
Participation, he realised, was the best path to learning. He
quotes the Chinese proverb: “I hear and I forget, I see and
I remember, I do and I understand” as his mantra for the
network promoting youth excellence.
The history
Professor Csermely’s ‘baby’ first drew European attention as
a winner of the European Molecular Biology Organisation’s
(EMBO) Award for Communication in the Life Sciences,
which he received in 2003.
On that occasion, the EMBO’s jury panel said that the project
“sparked the interest in science of many young students,
helping them to get into the best colleges and universities”.
In fact, many of the youngsters involved in the early years of
the programme have gone on to do PhDs. A lot of them are
now mentors in the movement, or took up careers as science
teachers and set up their own research programmes.
“We started our programme to offer top research opportunities
to interested high-school students. Today, we have more
than 5 000 students in this programme, which is helped by
600 mentors and 800 high-school teachers. One-third of the
students come from small villages and exactly half of the
participants and winners are girls,” says Csermely.
Progress/achievements
The movement is going from strength to strength. It draws
almost double the number of students from one year to the
next. In 2002, it founded a Network of Youth Excellence
which promotes collaboration between extra-curricular
research movements in 20 European and six non-European
countries. Nowadays, most of the new recruits to the
programme come via word of mouth.
The programme strengthens the links in society as students
pass on their knowledge of science to family and friends,
notes Csermely. “Many students will not continue their life
as scientists but [with this basic understanding] they can
help science in the media, business and politics.”
In November 2006, the European Commission announced
that Peter Csermely would be part of an expert group that
will look at what action can be taken in Europe to support
48
DESCARTES SCIENCE COMMUNICATION PRIZE
2004
science education in primary and secondary schools. The
group will be chaired by Michel Rocard, former French prime
minister and now Member of the European Parliament. It will
formulate policy recommendations designed to improve the
way that Europe approaches science teaching and ensure
future generations are properly prepared for a society and
economy that relies on knowledge as a driving force.
between all civil movements and the government,” he
continues. This is very delicate work which needs careful
thought to ensure that we have a pool of skilled scientists
for generations to come, he concludes.
Winning the prize
This submission was made by the European Molecular
Biology Organisation (EMBO) and won its 2003 Award for
Communication in the Life Sciences. Established in 1964 by
leading scientists in the biosciences field, its 24 member
states are now committed to promoting this science in
Europe. Today, through the work of its over 1 100 scientists,
it is developing a strong transnational approach to molecular
biology and identifying measures to help train scientists in
this area.
Winning the prize has had a powerful impact on the way
Csermely now carries out his work. “For me, Descartes was
an award for several thousand people. Everything is free in
our movement and the work is based on volunteers. Our
mentors and teachers sacrifice their time and money to give
the best students the top-level science that they deserve,”
he comments.
These many contributors worldwide have now been
recognised for their hard work, he adds. “The network we
started to help the co-operation of similar initiatives all
around the world now has members from more than 33
countries (23 in Europe).”
The prize has also been of great benefit in attracting
programme sponsors. “But the greatest benefit of all is that
the initiative became a model,” he says. “Today, it is adapted
for use in the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Romania,
Slovakia and even in Asia and Africa. Former high-school
research students return to their school and start a scientific
student club. The original idea became self-sustaining and
self-perpetuating. Descartes was a highly important step in
this process.”
Science and society
implications
“Programmes like these teach us scientists that, if we
are unable to explain our work to our mother [or a lay
person], it is either not important enough or our thoughts
about it are not clear enough,” stresses Csermely on the
importance of events like the Descartes Prize and other
science awareness programmes to modern society.
“Either way, these are important signs that change is needed.
Modern society needs talented people. We cannot afford
the luxury of neglecting these brilliant young minds by not
helping them develop their talents and integrate in society,
which is why we established the National Council for the
Help of the Gifted in Hungary to promote co-operation
Who made the
nomination?
www.embo.org
INFO
Network of Youth Excellence by Peter Csermely
Category
Innovative action for science communication
Contact Information
Semmelweis University
Budapest, Hungary
Tel: +36 30 559 4420
Fax: +36 1 222 0517
E-mail
[email protected]
Movement website
www.kutdiak.hu
Network of youth excellence website
www.nyex.info
Professor Csermely’s lab website
www.weaklink.sote.hu
Learn more...
What do the students say about the programme?
“You completely changed my life when I entered
this programme,” commented one young
Hungarian.
“Here I found friends and learned how to
distinguish between important and unimportant
information,” another participant in the network
reflected.
49
COMPOSITES-ON-TOUR
Taking composites for a spin
round Europe
Composites-on-Tour covered the length and breadth of Europe in an ambitious
bid to familiarise the European public with exciting materials of the future.
Whether you can spot them or not, composites are all
around you – and they are spreading. They can be found
in mundane objects, such as the bankcard in your wallet,
enhanced bicycles and cars, and space-age components in
satellites and launchers.
Composites have been dubbed the ‘material of the
future‘ because of their malleability – designers can mix
and match properties – and their potential not only to
help solve complex design problems but also as a more
environmentally friendly alternative to traditional metals
and plastics. By blending the best characteristics of various
materials, composites can be lighter, stronger, tougher and
greener than their traditional counterparts.
Composites-on-Tour included a mobile exhibition, pulled
along by an articulated truck, two design competitions and
an exposition of prize winning objects. Just about everything
could be found in the trailer – ultra-light bicycles made
entirely of carbon fibres, aircraft and car parts, surfboards
and chairs, musical instruments, engines, ...
The design competitions attracted more than 40 designers
from all over the world. The awarded designs were
displayed in an exhibition at the VIZO Gallery (now Design
Flanders), in the heart of Brussels. A third exhibition, in the
Design Museum Ghent (Belgium), highlighted the history
of composites in the design of ‘consumer goods‘, from the
early cotton fibre reinforced bakelite radio to 21st century
composite bikes. The two Belgian exhibitions attracted
around 25 000 visitors.
All of the items displayed were everyday objects made of
composites about which most of us know very little. The
exhibition explained what they are made of, how they are
made and their precise properties. Visitors could wander
through different ‘spaces’ with interactive sequences
analysing and breaking down these products.
50
The history
This ambitious project, supported by the EU’s European
Science Week initiative, was the brainchild of Ignaas
Verpoest, a professor of metallurgical and material
engineering at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (BE).
In addition to the KULeuven and the Flemish Institute for
Independent Entrepreneurship (VIZO), the University of
Liverpool (UK), the Technical University of Delft (NL), and
the University of Napoli (IT), the UK Centre for Materials
and Education, the Belgian company Compositrailer, and
the Design Museum Ghent also contributed. Visit the
partners and sponsors page on the project website for full
details of these contributions.
Verpoest, a respected teacher, researcher and writer in the
field, has spent a full career investigating high-performance
materials and learning new ways to communicate his – and
his team’s – findings to both scientific and lay audiences.
Composites-on-Tour hit on a winning formula of presenting
solid scientific facts in an engaging and memorable fashion
to all ages, but especially to young people.
He speaks animatedly about the vital role of composites in
space technology and Formula 1 race cars – and can even
ignite interest in the more mundane household objects
where composite plastics, for example, can also be found.
Composites-on-Tour, the travelling exhibition that sought
to raise public awareness of these important new materials,
travelled to eight countries, stopping off in 40 cities in the
summer of 2002. The mobile exhibit drew some 30 000
visitors and distributed more than 100 000 folders, posters,
leaflets and invitations. The Science Week tour set off from
Brugge (BE). It toured Denmark, Germany, France, Spain,
the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland
and, finally, back to Belgium. The bright-coloured mobile
DESCARTES SCIENCE COMMUNICATION PRIZE
museum-cum-lab, clocked up 10 000 km. The articulated
trailer, containing the exhibition, was itself an ultra-light
vehicle constructed entirely of composite materials by the
firm Compositrailer.
During its journey, it took in the Journals and Exhibitions on
Composites (JEC) Show, in France – drawing 23 000 visitors
and 132 journalists – and won the 2003 Special JEC Award
before being forwarded to the European Commission as a
Descartes Prize entry – and subsequent winner.
Progress/achievements
The exhibition Xtra Strong/Light – Composites is a followup of the first science communication project about
composites, Composites-on-Tour, and couples science
to design. It is organised in the framework of the science
communication project Composites-on-Tour-2, supported
by the European Union in the framework of the European
Science and Technology week.
The first part of the exhibition highlights the scientific
foundations of composite materials in a playful and
interactive manner. In the second part of the exhibition, the
Belgian designers Clem van Himbeeck and Weyers & Borms,
winners of the first Composites-on-Tour design competition
in 2002, show how they make use of composite materials
in an inventive way. Also, various designs are shown of
the Israeli designer Ron Arad, who runs a design agency in
London; both his original metal versions as well as various
composite versions are shown.
Next to this exhibition, an International Composites Design
Competition was held earlier in 2006. The results of this
competition will be shown in six European design centres.
The first of these exhibitions opens on February 15, 2007
in the gallery of Design Flanders in Brussels (until March
18, 2007). After this the exhibition, accompanied by the
scientific part of Xtra Strong/Light – Composites, will be
shown for one month at a time in design centres in Paris,
Barcelona, Budapest, Eindhoven and Ljubljana.
2004
Science and society
implications
“While it is clear that composite materials have reached
abroad public in a short time, this same public is unfamiliar
with the concepts behind composites,” explains the team
of seven partners which organised Composites-on-Tour,
thanks also to Science Week funding. The funds were used
to help raise public awareness about composite materials
and their applications and were also provided by the
Commission’s Science and Society programme.
Who made the
nomination?
This submission was made by the Journals
and Exhibitions on Composites (JEC), a
service provider whose mission is to promote
composite materials around the world
through such events as the JEC Composites
competition and the JEC Composites
Network. Its mantra is the ‘sharing of
knowledge through integrated services’.
www.globalcomposites.com
INFO
Composites-on-Tour by Ignaas Verpoest
Category
Innovative action for science communication
Contact Information
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Tel: +32 (0)16 321 306
Fax: +32 (0)16 321 99
E-mail
[email protected]
Website
www.compositesontour-2.be
Winning the prize
Winning confirmed what Verpoest knew about science and
the public. “With the Composites-on-Tour initiative, we
just wanted to explain the mystery of composites and...
increase the interest of the general public in new materials
and in scientific innovations,” he says. “The link between
composites and good design enabled us to reach a whole
new public, and to convey to them the message that
innovative design would be impossible without innovations
in materials science!”
Learn more...
“Thanks to initiatives such as Composites-on-Tour,
[these materials] can gain broader public coverage.
This project caught our eye straight away and it has
now been awarded the prestigious Descartes Prize.
We’re very happy and proud to have helped this
valuable initiative and motivated team gain public
recognition. Our congratulations to the creator
behind the project, Ignaas Verpoest, who, with his
catching enthusiasm and tenacity, convinced us all
of the value of this vast project and implemented
it successfully. We’re also very happy to prove our
ability to join forces and work together as a network,
combining talents to promote composite materials,”
commented JEC General Manager Frédérique Mutel.
51
FACE AUX PHASMES
phantoms
insect world
Confronting the
of the
‘Face aux phasmes‘ (Facing phasmas), an episode in the series ‘C’est pas sorcier’
(‘The Magically Simple’) delves into the hidden world of the stick insect. Found
in all shapes and sizes, this master of disguise can change its appearance to
fit in with its natural environment and escape predators.
Everything about stick insects carries scientific intrigue,
from their name in French, phasme, which means
apparition or ghost, to their movements and unique way
of concealing their eggs in reproduction. But as shown
by Fred, Jamy and Sabine – the three popular presenters
of ‘Face aux phasmes’ – there is nothing supernatural
about them except their eerie ability to blend in with the
surrounding sticks, leaves and bushes.
The history
“It’s a little beast that doesn’t lack imagination,” the film
series producer, RIFF International Productions, explains
on the jacket cover of the video. To conceal itself from
predators, it can stay still for hours and even sway in the
wind like the branches it has assumed as cover, it continues.
What’s more, it lays eggs which form the shape of small
grains to mask their origin so they do not look like a tasty
snack for reptiles.
Showing on the public channel France 3, the series has been
running since 1994 and has covered over 350 themes from
the animal world, history, medicine, the environment and
more. It has answered some of the most vexing scientific
questions, such as why the dinosaurs disappeared, and even
some of the more banal ones like why we need to eat.
The Descartes Prize winning television programme was
aired as part of a long-running series of half-hour scientific
programmes, called ‘C’est pas sorcier‘. Vincent Lamy and
colleague’s documentary is crammed with useful facts and
interesting tips about the 2 500 known species of phasmas
found mainly in tropical parts of the world.
Progress/achievements
‘C’est pas sorcier’ has collected a bundle of well-earned
prizes, awards and accolades dating back five years. In 2000,
for example, the producers bagged awards in different MIFScience’s categories including the Box Office Scientific Film,
Top 15 Individual, European Box Office and Young Public
categories for titles such as ‘The Biggest ships in the World’,
‘Connected Driving – Electric Cars’ and ‘Bridges’. In the
ensuing years, the awards continued to roll in for a whole
range of episodes illuminating such topics as volcanoes,
Venice, termites, plastics, carbon resources and much more.
In October 2006, the episode ‘Les mystères de l’Univers’
(‘The Mysteries of the Universe’) was awarded the Prix du
Magazine at the prestigious scientific film festival ‘Image et
Science’ in Paris.
52
DESCARTES SCIENCE COMMUNICATION PRIZE
2004
Science and society
implications
The prize was also strong confirmation of the importance
of television as a medium in which science can be made
more interesting and palatable for mass audiences. The
fact that programmes, such as ‘C’est pas sorcier‘, can draw
a large and loyal audience and win so many awards is
a testament to its consistent quality. The producers say
its success comes down not only to its excellent topic
selection, but also its ability to bring the topic to life in
an entertaining and believable way. “Surely, this is what is
meant by science and society!” they would agree.
Winning the prize
The media’s role is not only confined to ‘reporting’ science,
it can play a major role in popularising it. Television, for
instance, is cited by many Europeans as being their primary
source of information and popular TV science programmes
help promote scientific awareness. Frédéric Courant, who
presents ‘C’est pas sorcier‘, shared his years of on-screen
experience.
“‘C’est pas sorcier‘ appeals to a wide range of age groups
and social classes,” Courant says. In fact, the programme
goes out across the entire French-speaking world – it has
even been dubbed into Mandarin – and regularly attracts
a quarter of prime-time audiences in France.
Explaining the show’s phenomenal success, Courant
observes that: “In France, science and culture are placed
on a pedestal – it is useful sometimes to inject an element
of fun.”
The show follows a basic formula in which a naive main
character stumbles through various adventures, while
experts and scientists explain the underlying science. A
large dose of action, whether it is jumping out of aeroplanes
or plunging into sewers, is also on the menu.
“You have to put yourself in the layperson’s shoes so that
you can pose the right questions to those working in the
laboratories,” he notes. “If people feel that they have
come away more intelligent, this is extremely gratifying
for them.”
MIF-Science also proudly promoted its association with the
European-level science communication prize, dedicating
several pages on its website to all the prize winners,
including the collaborative research laureates.
Who made the
nomination?
This submission was made by Les Amis du Marché
International du Film Scientifique (AMIF-Sciences) and
won the MIF-Sciences.net Trophy for the Best Scientific
Film of the Year 2002. “Our knowledge at your service since
1988” is the mantra of AMIF-Sciences, a science promotion
organisation based in France. Resources provided by
AMIF include a science and technology footage bank, a
database of projects and contacts, sound and multimedia
production, video and technical assistance, as well as
organising events, conferences and the MIF-Science film,
photographer and website trophies.
www.mif-sciences.net
INFO
‘Face aux phasmes‘ by producer Vincent Lamy
from the series ‘C’est pas sorcier’
Category
Popularising science through audiovisual and
electronic media
Contact Information
RIFF International Productions, Paris, France
Tel: +33 (0)1 4437 1240
Fax: +33 (0)1 4639 8300
E-mail
[email protected]
Website
www.riff-prod.fr/accueil/index.html
Learn more...
‘Face aux phasmes’ was written by Frédéric
Courant, Jamy Gourmaud, Bernard Gonner
and Eric Thiery. It was directed by Catherine
Breton and produced by Vincent Lamy for RIFF
International Production and France 3 television.
53
SCIENCE IN MOTION
Swedish doctor prescribes
a healthy dose of
dialogue
Dr Carl Johan Sundberg may be an Associate Professor of physiology with
a distinguished career in molecular physiology, but he is no lab hermit. The
Swedish physician has made quite a name for himself – both in Sweden and
abroad – as a people-friendly scientist who can reach and appeal to a range
of audiences, from university students to primary school children.
Dr Sundberg has a passion for explaining science in a
clear and understandable fashion, and is committed
to breaking down the barriers between science and the
media. In addition to writing a book about biology for
young teenagers, he has created a course on bio-medical
science for journalists and on science communication for
PhD students.
Over the past two decades, Dr Sundberg has been involved in
a plethora of communication projects. On the pan-European
scale, he founded the two-yearly Euroscience Open Forum
(www.esof.org) which first took place in Stockholm in 2004.
Euroscience, of which he was vice-president between 1998
and 2004, is a grass-roots scientific network with 2 000
members spanning 40 countries.
Over the years, Dr Sundberg has also helped to design
several science centre exhibitions which have attracted
thousands of visitors. He has held more than 100 lectures
on science targeted at the public, including schoolchildren.
The Swedish professor has also found time to write dozens
of articles on science.
54
The history
Dr Sundberg was born in 1958 in the Swedish capital
Stockholm. His diverse academic and professional
experience has taken him far and wide: from a war surgeon
and diver in the Swedish military to a biotech entrepreneur
and leading science communicator. Academically, he was
awarded his PhD in 1993 and has been an Associate
Professor at the Karolinska Institute, one of Europe’s
largest medical universities, since 1999.
He has held several other positions at the Karolinska
Institute, including a physiology and pharmacology
researcher and a project leader at the Centre for Medical
Innovations. He has also sat on several of the university’s
committees. He is currently a part-time investment
manager for the Karolinska Investment Fund.
Outside the university’s walls, he is a board member and
advisor to several biotech and biomedical companies and
industry organisations. His research work focuses mainly
on the molecular mechanisms involved in the adaptation
of human skeletal muscle to physical activity.
DESCARTES SCIENCE COMMUNICATION PRIZE
Progress/achievements
Some 11 000 people took part in the first Euroscience
Open Forum’s outreach programme and more than 1 800
attended the conference itself, including 350 journalists.
The second edition in 2006, which took place in the German
city of Munich, drew 2 100 – among them 485 journalists –
to the conference and 50 000 to the outreach programme.
The Spanish city of Barcelona is due to host the 2008 event.
ESOF has already become a well-known meeting and a
natural part of the European “landscape” in science and its
role in society.
Winning the prize
Perhaps the greatest reward of winning the Descartes Prize
for Dr Sundberg was the acknowledgement it conferred of
the effort he has put in over his career. “Winning this award
was a recognition of the science communication work that
I have done over many years,” he explained.
He notes that science communication is not well understood
by his peers and does not receive enough attention within
the scientific community. “The Descartes Prize sheds
light on the communicative aspect of science in a very
powerful manner because of its high standing in the eyes
of scientists.” Dr Sundberg also points to the tough and
transparent nomination and selection procedures, the strong
emphasis on exposure by the European Commission and the
significant prize money. “It clearly stands out as the premier
science communication prize in Europe.”
Dr Sundberg believes that winning this prize has made his
science communication work easier.
Science and society
implications
Dr Sundberg truly deserves the accolade of being “Sweden’s
Mr Science Communication” and has succeeded in making
science more relevant to his Swedish compatriots. In a
country of 9 million people, his exhibitions have attracted
over a million visitors. Many thousands more have attended
his lectures and read his popular articles in the media.
He has worked hard to nurture a passion for science
among younger generations. Thousands of young people
have attended his lectures and his biology book is read by
school kids across the country.
2005
His communicative touch has also touched the wider
European scene with the establishment of the Euroscience
Open Forum (ESOF). His communication ideas act as a
model for others to emulate and have been adopted in
several European countries.
Who made the
nomination?
This submission was made by Åforsk, a private foundation
which organises a number of project grants, scholarships
and prizes for the successful dissemination of technology or
good teaching practices in the technical sciences.
Dr Sundberg won Åforsk’s 2005 prize for the dissemination
of knowledge. “The activities of Carl Johan Sundberg
in promoting the dissemination of knowledge from
universities to different sectors of society have gone on in
parallel with his scientific career at Karolinska Institute,”
the Åforsk jury concluded. “For two decades [he has]
shown outstanding initiative and energy in the field of
science communication and continues to do so in the
local, national and international arena.”
www.aforsk.se
INFO
Science in Motion by Dr Carl Johan Sundberg
Category
Professional scientist engaged in science
communication towards the public
Contact Information
Department of Physiology and Pharmacology,
LIME and SDO
Karolinska Institute
171 77 Stockholm, Sweden
E-mail
[email protected]
Website
www.ki.se
Learn more...
More information on the Euroscience Open
Forum 2006 is available at: www.esof2006.org
More information on the Euroscience Open
Forum 2004 is available at: www.esof2004.org
55
STARDUST
Danish scientist brings astrophysics
down to earth
Dr Anja C. Andersen has not only managed to bring astrophysics down to
Earth for millions of Danes, who have joined her on a discovery journey of the
wonders of the cosmos from the comfort of their living rooms, she has also
helped raise the star of science in the eyes of young women.
Dr Andersen is a star in Denmark thanks to her appearances
on television, radio and in the print press. She was the
astrophysics expert on a TV science show called Kosmos.
Aimed at young people, the programme won a major
television award in Paris. Also, Dr Andersen’s public
reputation was cemented in May 2003 when half the
Danish population tuned in to watch her live presentation
of a solar eclipse over Europe.
In addition, she travels around the country presenting
popular talks and actively participates in debates about
science and technology issues at schools, libraries and
colleges. The superstar astrophysicist has penned numerous
articles on astronomy and physics, as well as a book about
stardust aimed at schoolchildren.
Dr Andersen has become a role model for young women,
who are traditionally under-represented in the sciences,
particularly at senior levels. She has broken new ground by
presenting science and technology issues in glossy women’s
magazines – a new frontier for science communicators!
The history
Born in 1965, Dr Andersen is a very youthful senior scientist.
Married with three children, she is a living demonstration
for sceptics that a woman can be a successful professional
scientist and mother, without compromising either.
She was awarded her masters degree in astronomy in
1995 and her PhD in astrophysics in 1999. She did her
post-doc research at Uppsala University in Sweden and
the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. Between 2002
and 2005, she was a fellow at the Nordic Institute of
Theoretical Physics.
Her main area of research interest is the astrophysics of
dust, including dust formation, dust coagulation, as well
as the role of dust in relation to the late stages of stellar
evolution and the early stages of planet formation. She is
also interested in astrobiology. She is the co-author of more
than forty articles in international scientific publications,
twenty papers on gender in academia, twenty-five popular
astronomy papers, and much more.
Progress/achievements
In November 2005, Dr Andersen took up a position as
associate professor at the Dark Cosmology Centre situated
at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen. The
institute focuses on research, education and public outreach
– Dr Andersen should feel right at home there.
Two prizes were awarded to the young Dane in October
2006. The Outstanding Young Persons of the World (TOYP)
award was presented to her by Junior Chamber International
Denmark and the Kirstine Meyer’s award presented by
56
DESCARTES SCIENCE COMMUNICATION PRIZE
the Society for Physics Dissemination (SNU) founded by
the world famous physicist H.C. Ørsted, the discoverer of
electromagnetism. Kirstine Meyer was the first women in
Denmark to obtain a university degree in Physics in 1892
and it is with humbleness that Dr Andersen follows in the
footsteps of a unique role model who showed that women,
as well as men, could be capable physicists.
2005
Dr Andersen also engages in more intimate outreach
activities, such as public lectures and debates at schools
and science cafés. Her passion for her subject is contagious
and her media appearances have inspired a large number
of people to pursue scientific studies and careers.
In the man’s world of science, women, in particular, find in
her a model of how a young woman can reach the top of
her game, while maintaining a healthy family life.
Winning the prize
Winning the Descartes Prize has increased Dr Andersen’s
visibility, and placed more demands on her time. She
receives many more requests than she can possibly meet.
The advantage of the prize, she says, “is that it is more
accepted now that I spend time on public outreach. The
Descartes Prize has a significant impact on recognising and
acknowledging science communication as an important
part of science.”
She is often invited to other research institutions to talk
about how to improve science communication with the
public. Receiving the prize has also had a significant impact
on her access to the media – she is frequently invited to be
a science expert by all types of media (TV, radio, newspapers
and magazines) not only within Denmark but also in
neighbouring countries (such as Sweden, Germany, France,
and Iceland).
The Danish Geological Museum chose her research on
stardust from meteorites as one of the main highlights in
their new meteoritic exhibition opened by Crown Prince
Frederik in June 2006.
During the summer of 2006, Dr Andersen was invited to
Iceland by Thorsteinn Vilhjalmsson (Descartes Science
Communication nominee 2005) to present a popular talk on
astrophysics and a talk at the University of Iceland on the
shortage of women in academia. She was very well received
in Iceland and appeared several times on national TV, radio
and in all the national newspapers during her stay there.
EuroNews featured a portrait of her in their science magazine
FUTURIS in the autumn of 2006.
Science and society
implications
Dr Andersen is not only concerned with star formations
in the skies but also here on Earth. By transforming
herself into a major media personality, she has brought
astrophysics into millions of Danish households and also
made science more relevant to hundreds of thousands of
young people.
Who made the
nomination?
Dr Andersen’s charisma and drive have significantly boosted
the public visibility of science, particularly among young
people and women. She was put forward for the Descartes
Science Communication Prize by Denmark’s Science
Ministry which noted her “remarkable ability to relate
difficult topics within physics and technology to ordinary
people’s lives without compromising scientific quality”.
Dr Andersen won the ministry’s first-ever National Research
Communication award. “Communication takes time,” the
jury acknowledged. “We should be happy that some of our
researchers make this effort because there is a price to pay
for being in the media. Often, the professional recognition
of an effort to communicate knowledge in a direct and
popular manner takes the form, not of approval, but of
silence, professional resentment and spite.”
http://videnskabsministeriet.dk
INFO
Stardust by Dr Anja C. Andersen
Category
Professional scientist engaged in science
communication towards the public
Contact Information
Dark Cosmology Centre
Juliane Maries Vej 30
2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
Tel: +45 3532 5991
Fax: +45 3532 5989
E-mail
[email protected]; [email protected]
Website
www.dark-cosmology.dk
Learn more...
You can find out more about Anja C. Andersen’s
research and outreach work, her publications,
and the awards she has received on her personal
website: www.dark-cosmology.dk/~anja/
57
SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING
A big bang in popular
science
Travel writer Bill Bryson has caused a big bang in the science publishing
world. His best-selling A short history of nearly everything takes the reader
on a thrilling and dizzying ride through space and time, from the birth of the
universe to the ascendancy of humankind on the third rock from the sun in
this quiet corner of the Milky Way.
Previously known for his witty travel books, the intrepid
writer decided to venture into science writing, armed with
little more than an everyman’s knowledge of science and
boundless curiosity.
His best-seller helps demystify many of the biggest
questions in science for ordinary readers, from the Big
Bang to the rise of human civilisation. “This book is about
how we went from being nothing at all to there being
something and then how a little of that something turned
into us, and also what happened in between and some of
what has happened since,” Mr Bryson explains.
The writer’s desire to understand the world around him
took him to a whole range of “saintly experts”, as he
calls them, who helped him answer some outstandingly
dumb questions, as he puts it. How did we end up with
a hot core in the middle of our planet and how do we
know its temperature? How do
scientists know what goes on
inside an atom and how can
they seemingly know so much
and not always be able to tell
us whether it is going to rain
or shine?
58
The history
Bill Bryson was born in Iowa, USA, in 1951. He moved to
the UK in 1977 and lives there with his English wife, whom
he met during a backpacking expedition to England in
1973, and four children. He is a best-selling travel writer.
His popular titles include Lost continent, Mother tongue,
Neither here nor there, Made in America, Notes from a
small country, Down Under, and African diary.
Before he became a best-selling author, Mr Bryson worked
as a journalist with several UK newspapers, including The
Independent and The Times. In 2005, Bryson was appointed
Chancellor of Durham University, succeeding the late Peter
Ustinov, the Oscar-winning actor, writer, dramatist and
raconteur.
Progress/achievements
In October 2006, Bill Bryson released his new book The
life and times of the Thunderbolt Kid, a humorous memoir
recalling the trials and tribulations of growing up in the
USA in the 1950s. Bryson’s hometown of Des Moines,
Iowa, proclaimed 21 October 2006 to be ‘Bill Bryson Day’
and presented the author with a key to the city.
DESCARTES SCIENCE COMMUNICATION PRIZE
2005
Although the book popularises scientific subject, it does
not compromise on accuracy. One top scientist is alleged
to have jokingly described the book as “annoyingly free of
mistakes”.
Who made the nomination?
This submission was made by the UK’s Royal Society
and Bill Bryson won the 2004 AVENTIS Prize for Science
Book. “This ambitious book will communicate science to
the widest possible audience in an intelligent and highly
accessible away,” maintained Professor Robert Winston,
chairman of the AVENTIS Prize jury.
Winning the prize
www.royalsoc.ac.uk
On winning the Descartes Prize, Bill Bryson noted selfdepreciatingly in an interview with UK daily The Guardian:
“Never has someone been more generously awarded for
his ignorance. I’m very grateful to all the scientists who,
without exception, helped me to discover the wonder of
their science.”
“I’m especially grateful to the Royal Society for nominating
me for this award and in recognition of that, plan to return
a small portion of the prize to the Society, in the hope
they’ll be able to buy the staff a seasonal drink.”
INFO
A short history of nearly everything
by Bill Bryson
Science and society implications
Category
Popularising science through the written word
A short history of nearly everything has made some of
the most complex and important issues in science today
accessible – and, above all, enjoyable – to a general
readership. One review of the book in the British daily
The Guardian praised the “energetic, quirky, familiar and
humorous” prose, noting that,” Bryson’s greatest skill is
that of holding the reader’s hand throughout, building
up such trust that topics as recondite, atomic weights,
relativity and particle physics are shorn of their terrors.”
Contact Information
Bill Bryson
London
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)20 87490315
Fax: +44 (0)20 8749 0318
E-mail
c/o [email protected]
Website
www.randomhouse.com/features/billbryson/
Learn more...
You can find out more about Bill Bryson’s A
short history of nearly everything at: http://www.
randomhouse.com/features/billbryson/bb_title/
display.pperl?isbn=9780767923224
59
OVERLEVEN
The human narrative behind
the science
One mistake often made in school curricula is to separate the science from
the scientist, ignoring the real life stories of passion and determination
behind every scientific discovery. A Belgian documentary, OverLeven, has
injected the human back into science.
When researchers pour their heart and soul into cracking a
problem, the dividend for society can be astonishing. When
exploring a contemporary scientific challenge, OverLeven
weaves both the science and the ‘back room’ story behind
it into a compelling human narrative.
The programme aims to present difficult scientific content
by using analogies and metaphors. By concentrating on the
scientists – at least one of those featured in each episode
has to be Flemish – OverLeven personalises the science for
the non-technical viewer.
Broadcast weekly on Canvas, a Flemish-language public
channel, OverLeven attracts an impressive 120 000 viewers
per week in Flanders, a region of 6 million people. Each
episode tells the story of a scientist or a group of scientists
trying to achieve a breakthrough or solve a problem in a
range of fields, from zoology to environmental issues.
Episodes have included one on the puzzling death in South
Africa of a certain type of reindeer, and a scientist who has
trained rats to act as minesweepers.
The history
OverLeven was first broadcasted in 1997. The title is a play
on words: ‘overleven’ means ‘survival’ in Dutch .The capital
‘L’ in the middle invites the viewer to read the title as “over
leven” which means “about life”.
Over the years the programme moved to five different slots
in the schedule: from late night on weekdays to weekend
prime time, without much effect on its ratings: OverLeven
always seems to keep its audience share of 6% with
occasional leaps to 12% and even higher, depending on
the topic. OverLeven is widely appreciated in the academic
community and often cited as the favourite TV programme
of writers, politicians and intellectuals.
In a major revamping of all CANVAS programming last year,
the capital “L” was dropped in the title and the show now
aims to appeal to a broader audiences, with subjects which
are closes to the viewers personal life and environment.
The programme was rescheduled to prime time on Sunday
(9.05 pm).
60
DESCARTES SCIENCE COMMUNICATION PRIZE
Progress/achievements
In order to encourage scientists to present their work in
a more accessible format, the programme has introduced
the OverLeven Prize. Winners of the accolade are awarded
appearances on the show or their work is published in a
popular magazine or journal.
Winning the prize
“Winning the Descartes Prize was a complete surprise for
me personally and for the entire crew,” admitted Jos Van
Hemelrijck, the programme’s director. “It took some time to
sink in how big this really was.”
OverLeven’s success was covered in the Belgian national
television news and in all the newspapers. Van Hemelrijck
was invited to speak on radio shows and congratulations
poured in. Together with VRT’s top management, the entire
crew was treated to a public celebration in the Palace of the
Royal Academy of Sciences.
For OverLeven, the Descartes Prize came at a very auspicious
moment: it was read as a strong signal to the network
management that communicating science is part of our
mission as a public television station. Entertainment is not
everything: there is an audience for a high-quality science
show.
This set some important wheels in motion. VRT is now
willing to embark upon a thematic TV channel on science
and education. In the short term, the programme is looking
into network-based solutions to bring scientific content
to the viewers. In August, the OverLeven team hosted the
Flemish scientific community and invited them to enter
into a continuing dialogue with VRT in order to improve
science coverage. “The initiative was warmly welcomed,”
Van Hemelrijck notes.
OverLeven even received a royal mention. On Belgian national
day, the 21st of July 2006, King Albert II dedicated his speech
to the importance of scientific research and innovation and
called for more young people to study science. The monarch
expressed his happiness with OverLeven’s winning the
Science Communication Prize.
2005
Science and society
implications
OverLeven consistently draws large TV audiences to
watch what are at heart complex scientific topics. It also
highlights the human face of impersonal science. This
helps achieve the important goal of bringing the scientific
community closer to society at large.
By shedding light on the humanity behind the science, the
programme reveals the excitement – and frustration – of
following the twists and turns of the path to knowledge.
It also proves to sceptical youth that science is relevant to
the real world and can help answer many of the issues that
concern and interest them in their daily lives.
Who made the
nomination?
This submission was made by the Royal Flemish Academy
of Belgium for Science and the Arts, an independent
and multidisciplinary learned society for the practice and
promotion of science and culture. OverLeven won its 2003
‘Prijs van de Vlaamse minister voor Wetenscapsbeleid’.
It received the accolade for two reasons: it reached a
broad audience and it “made the work of scientists more
attractive”.
www.kvab.be
INFO
OverLeven by Jos Van Hemelrijck
Category
Popularising science through audiovisual and
electronic media
Contact Information
Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroep
Brussels, Belgium
Tel: +32 (0)2 741 33 68
Fax: +32 (0)2 735 58 65
E-mail
[email protected]
Website
www.canvas.be/overleven
Learn more...
You can find out more about OverLeven at:
http://www.canvas.be/overleven
61
TÜBINGER KINDER-UNI BY MICHAEL SEIFERT
‘Kinder-Uni’
professors
The German word ‘Kindergarten’, literally ‘children’s garden’, has become
an accepted term in the English language. Perhaps a younger and no less
successful German invention, the ‘Kinder-Uni’ (Children’s University), will also
enter other languages sometime in the future.
The idea of creating a children’s university was the
brainchild of Michael Seifert, head of public relations
at the University of Tübingen in Germany, and two local
editors, Ulla Steuernagel and Ulrich Janssen. Right from
the beginning, this was a collaborative effort between
Tübingen University and Schwäbisches Tagblatt, a local
newspaper. The format proved instantly popular – the
second-ever lecture had to be moved to the university’s
largest lecture hall to fit the 1 000 children who had
turned up.
The two editors wrote books about Kinder-Uni’s first
three years of activities. More than 400 000 copies in 11
languages have been sold. The books’ success and the wide
media interest have inspired other universities in Germany
and beyond to start their own Kinder-Uni programme.
The history
Professors at the University of Tübingen were keen to help
and an inaugural Kinder-Uni programme was launched
in the summer of 2002. It was made up of eight lectures
which aimed to stimulate scientific curiosity in a target of
eight- to 12-year-olds.
The first one, which dealt with the question: “Why do
volcanoes erupt?”, attracted some 400 children. Other
lectures delved into such intriguing questions as “Why
don’t stars fall from the sky?” and “Why are some people
rich and others poor?” The 2003 series even attracted a
Nobel Prize winner, German biologist Professor Christiane
Nüsslein-Volhard, who tackled the thorny question of
“Why are we not allowed to clone human beings?”
After five years of Kinder-Uni at Tübingen, about 25 000
children have attended these entertaining and educational
lectures. The Tübingen model has been emulated in nearly
70 towns in Germany and abroad.
62
DESCARTES SCIENCE COMMUNICATION PRIZE
Two new trends have been set in motion since winning
the award of the Descartes Prize. First, a Kinder-Uni
Researchers’ Day, with small workshops and hands-on
activities, was held all over the university campus. Second,
the Kinder-Uni has gone out to the country and set up two
branches in two small towns in the Black Forest and near
the Daimler-Chrysler plant. Hundreds of young children
came to unlock the mysteries of science.
Progress/achievements
In 2006, the Tübinger Kinder-Uni won another prize awarded
by Land of Ideas’ national competition which was created,
under the auspices of the German Federal President Horst
Köhler, to mark the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany. The
Kinder-Uni was chosen as a “place of ideas”.
Winning the prize
The Descartes Prize was a great motivation and help to start
new activities. The prize money was put into a foundation
called Young University which aims to promote innovative
activities to bring children and young people into contact to
the universities and science.
2005
Science and society
implications
As everyone knows, children are the future, and inspiring
them to take an interest in science will help ensure the
vitality of our future scientific heritage. According to a
survey, children find the Kinder-Uni lectures at Tübingen
fun, interesting and challenging.
The kids also said that the experience stoked their interest
in all kinds of scientific disciplines. But perhaps it is the
way that the children are handled that makes the whole
experience such a winner.
Michael Seifert explains that children “are exclusively
offered something that normally only adults gain access
to. They are treated seriously like adults and the lecturers
evidently make a great effort to fascinate the kids.”
Who made the
nomination?
This submission was made by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the University of Tübingen won its
2003 PR-FUCHS prize.
www.dfg.de
INFO
Tübinger Kinder-Uni by Michael Seifert
Category
Innovative action for science communication
Contact Information
University of Tübingen
Wilhelmstr. 7
72074 Tübingen, Germany
Tel: +49 (0)7071 297 6789
E-mail
[email protected]
Website
www.uni-tuebingen.de
Learn more...
You can find out more about the Kinder-Uni idea
at: www.uni-tuebingen.de/kinderuni and www.
die-kinder-uni.de (only in German).
63
THE EXPERT PANEL
Descartes Science Communication Prize 2006
Expert Panel Members
Mr Mikael Agaton
Film-maker Mikael Agaton has been producing major science and history documentaries for
international television since the start of the 1990s. As writer/director, he has been responsible
for productions such as The saga/odyssey of life, with renowned medical photographer Lennart
Nilsson, The Viking saga, Guardians of the north about the Sami people, War against disease,
Revolution of the mind and The stone carvers about the mysterious Nordic Bronze Age. The awards
Mr Agaton has received include the International Emmy award for best documentary, the George
Fosters Peabody award and the Grand Prix Nortel. He is presently involved in the creation of a
new major TV series: A journey to the centre of yourself, based on the recent scientific discoveries
relating to the mysterious creature known as the human being.
Mr Michel Alloul
General delegate of MIF-SCIENCES, France
Science communication,
audiovisual media
Mr Alloul was born in Marrakesh (Morocco) in 1947 and studied social and cultural animation
and audiovisual media. He has worked at several children and youth departments and festivals.
He is the founder of the Festival International du Film Scientifique de Palaiseau and has been
a delegate for the Association Internationale des Amis du Film Scientifique (AMIF-SCIENCES)
since 1988. He has also been the president of the Centre International Audiovisuel Universitaire,
a member of UNESCO’s Conseil International du Cinema et de la Télévision and the UN cultural
arm’s Commission Nationale Française, as well as a member of the World Association of Medical
and Health Films. Since 1994, he has been a European Commission expert on scientific and
technological audiovisual media matters and has created an on-line audiovisual competition, the
TROPHEES MIF-SCIENCES. He has also contributed to various scientific publications, conferences,
television programmes, scientific exhibitions and international festivals.
Dr Anja C. Andersen
Associate professor, Dark Cosmology Centre, Niels Bohr Institute,
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Astrophysics, science
communication
Ms Valeria Arzenton
Sociology, scientific
participation
64
CEO, Agaton Film, Stockholm, Sweden
Science documentaries
Dr Andersen holds a PhD in astrophysics and works at the newly established Dark Cosmology
Centre at the University of Copenhagen. Her research is focused on cosmic dust with the
emphasis on the role of cosmic dust in the thermal, dynamical and chemical conditions in the
different astrophysical environments. Dr Andersen is widely known as an excellent communicator
of science (in the public debate) as well as an enthusiastic advocate of women’s participation
in the natural sciences. In recognition of this, she has received several prices, among them the
Descartes Science Communication Prize 2005.
Sociologist, responsible for ‘science in society’ research activities at the Association
Observa, Italy
Ms Arzenton’s main research interests are in the area of the sociology of science, in particular
the public communication of science and the role of public participation in the governance of
techno-scientific innovation. Her recent work has focused on food safety and biotechnology
issues, with specific attention to the public perception of food-related risks. She published the
book Safety at table. Public perception of food-related risks in Veneto Region (with F. Neresini
and L. Ravarotto, 2005) and the essay GMO, not in my dish (in the periodical Cells and Citizens,
edited by M. Bucchi and F. Neresini, 2006). She is also on the editorial staff of the Observa’s yearly
publication The science in society fact book and contributes to the Italian newspaper La Stampa.
DESCARTES SCIENCE COMMUNICATION PRIZE
2006
Dr Andrea Bandelli
Consultant for Après Tendance, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Consultant in science
communication
Mr Bandelli is an independent advisor on science communication initiatives. After working for
newMetropolis in Amsterdam (now ‘NEMO’) from 1995 to 1999, he became manager of the
Science Learning Network, a worldwide on-line community of educators, students, schools,
science museums and other institutions pursuing a new inquiry-based science education model.
From 2000-2004, he was project manager of BIONET, a virtual collaborative exhibition on the
life sciences, and he is currently leading DECIDE, a project to encourage democratic activities in
science centres and museums. He has been a consultant for various institutions in Europe and the
USA, and for the national research organisations of Brazil and South Africa. His articles on public
engagement with science and informal learning have been published by the Nobel Foundation,
the Science Museum in London and in several journals. He was a board member at the Wellcome
Trust’s ReDiscover fund, and is currently a trustee of the Next Generation Foundation in London.
Mr Philippe Bijvoet
Director of Educational Programmes and Science Documentaries, VRT,
Brussels, Belgium
Science education television
programmes
Mr Bijvoet’s long career working for the Flemish public broadcaster, VRT, has focused on bringing
science closer to society by producing high-quality scientific documentaries and programmes
aimed at mass audiences. After studying at the Flemish Film, TV and Theatre Academy in Brussels
– now part of Erasmus Hogeschool – he went on to work as a freelance TV director for the public
broadcaster and private production companies before moving to the educational department of
VRT in 1978. Since then, he has directed science, technology and historical programmes. Since
1999, he has been working for the science documentary series OverLeven. He is a member of the
Science and Educational Experts Group of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
Ms Heidelinde Blümers Secretary-General of Programmes, Arte,
Broadcasting
Paris, France
Ms Blümers has held different positions in TV channels. She is currently working in the Programmes
Department of the French-German cultural TV Channel ARTE which broadcasts numerous science
documentaries. Before this, she was director of the channel president’s cabinet. Ms Blümers has
also been in charge of development for the production company Gedeon Communications and
the head of programming for the digital channels of the Canal+ group.
Dr Richard Braun
Microbiology, science and
society
Ms Sophie Coisne
Journalism and science
communication
Former Head of the Microbiology Department at the University of Bern,
Switzerland
In Dr Braun’s 26 years at the University of Bern’s microbiology department, he has worn many hats
– professor, department head and dean of the science faculty. His research interest focused on how
the genome is organised and on gene expression in parasitic protozoa. Since retiring, in 1998, he
has concentrated on the interaction between science and society, in particular public perceptions
of biotechnology. He has contributed, both at the national and European levels, to public dialogue
in the area of biotech and the life sciences. Currently, he is a member of the Task Group on Public
Perceptions on Biotechnology of the EFB (European Federation of Biotechnology).
Senior editor of the French science magazine La Recherche, France
President of the French Science Journalists Association (AJSPI) in Paris, Ms Coisne is senior editor
of the French science magazine La Recherche. Since completing her studies in biology, she has
gained vast experience writing for the French daily La Tribune and the weekly Le Point. She has
been permanent science writer for the monthly magazine for teenagers Science et Vie Junior.
One of her aims is to improve the communication between scientists and journalists and to
strengthen the ties between the AJSPI and equivalent European associations.
65
THE EXPERT PANEL
Professor
Nuno Crato
Mathematics and statistics
Dr Crato took up his current post in 2000, after eight years at the New Jersey and Stevens
Institutes of Technology (USA). He is also a senior science correspondent for the Portuguese
weekly newspaper Expresso and author of TV science documentaries. His research interests
include stochastic processes and time-series analysis with applications to economic and financial
(volatility) models, as well as to climate and fisheries data. He has a parallel interest in science
writing and advising science museums, and won the 2003 European Mathematics Society prize
for the best article addressing the general public, as well as an award for science communication
by Visionarium (PT). He has published over 500 articles, four dozen academic papers, four books,
is a member of several task forces and committees, and is currently president of the Portuguese
Mathematical Society (SPM).
Dr Suzanne
de Cheveigné
Researcher, National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris, France
Mr Sean Duke
Editor of Science Spin, science and discovery magazine, Ireland
Biochemistry
Sean Duke is joint editor and co-founder of Science Spin, which is Ireland’s first and only popular
science magazine, and reports on both domestic and international scientific developments. It
was set up by Mr Duke and two science journalism colleagues to fill the perceived gap that had
existed for many years in Ireland in the popular reporting of science. Mr Duke has a BSc from
University College Dublin, and an MA in science and environmental reporting from New York
University. He has 14 years’ experience of science reporting at this stage, having started in a local
newspaper, and later moving on to editorial positions. In addition to his editorial role at Science
Spin he is a regular contributor to The Sunday Times and Science (AAAS) and participates in Irish
national radio and television programmes.
Dr Michael W. Esser
CEO of Dramaworks GmbH, Berlin, Germany
Media specialist, script
development
Dr Esser pursued a spectrum of media-oriented courses of study and has since made his career
in editing, producing, directing and scriptwriting. He established the script department of the
first German daily soap opera and has constantly combined his academic knowledge of media
science with his wide work experience in documentaries and audiovisual science communication.
Besides his teaching assignments at a number of German and Italian film schools, broadcasters and
universities, he founded Dramaworks, an agency for scriptwriters and script development in 2000.
Dr Esser has been an active consultant and evaluator on EU-funded projects in the areas of science
and society, and IST, since 1998. He has initiated such projects as ESPECTS (which explores the
effectiveness of scriptwriting education in Europe) and Co-Scriptor (which developed software for
team-based script development).
Mr Vello Kala
Editor-in-chief of TM Magazine, Tallinn, Estonia
Science communication
Science media
66
Mathematics professor at Lisbon Technical University, Portugal
Dr de Cheveigné is actively involved in science and society dialogue through her work at CNRS
and as a ten-year member of the editorial committee of the well-known scientific journal
Hermès. Specialising in public perception of science, risk governance and how society relates to
technology, she has taken an interest in media coverage, especially television, of biotechnology
and animal-human relations. She has also studied women’s careers in science institutions. She
is a member of several national and EU scientific committees looking at science communication
issues. With numerous publications to her name in popular and scientific titles, as well as TV
programmes, she has put her scientific knowledge and communication skills to good use in lifting
the barriers between science and the public.
Mr Kala has held his present position as Editor-in-Chief of TM Magazine since 1998. During this
period, it has become the leading magazine covering popular science and mechanics in Estonia.
Mr Kala was among the first in post-Communism Estonia to start an independent magazine in
the transition from a state-controlled economy back in 1989 to 1991. This has provided him
with wide-ranging experience in media processes in societies undergoing transformation. In just
15 years, Estonia went from being a part of the now defunct Soviet Union to becoming an EU
Member State.
DESCARTES SCIENCE COMMUNICATION PRIZE
Professor Jaap Klein
Science communication
through film, the written
word, and websites
2006
Former managing director, Media Centre, University of Amsterdam,
The Netherlands
In his 25 years at the University of Amsterdam, Professor Klein produced around 270 audiovisual
programmes about science for universities, television and scientific institutions, such as CERN,
the European particle physics laboratory, in Geneva (CH). These programmes garnered 80 awards
at science festivals all over the world. He published several papers on educational technology and
dissemination of science. He is secretary-general of the World Association of Medical and Health
Film (WAMHF), which is connected to the World Health Organisation. WAMHF’s main objective
is to promote the production, documentation, distribution and use of audiovisual productions
focusing on medical science. Professor Klein is a member of the International Association of
Media in Science (IAMS), which is connected to UNESCO, the UN’s education and culture arm. He
is also a regular jury member at international science film festivals. He is currently working as a
palaeontology fellow at the Natural History Museum of The Netherlands.
Dr Athina Markantoni
Managing director of Euroscope Ltd, Greece
Social scientist, European
affairs, communication
Dr Markantoni is a specialist in, among other things, institution building and public administration
reform, and is involved in a range of EU policy-making areas, such as evaluating the research
Framework Programmes, gender issues, human resources, communication, and SME development.
Cutting her teeth as a researcher at Athens University working on a social policy project in Greece,
she moved into the European political sphere as a trainer in EU affairs covering such topics as
EU integration, EU institutions and decision-making procedures. Between 2001 and 2003, she
worked as a development consultant at Planet Ernst & Young, responsible for setting up and
managing the Business Acquisition Office. During this time, she conducted vocational training
for senior Greek public administrators on EU issues to help them prepare for the EU presidency in
2003. She also worked as an expert on public administration reform and communication for the
EU-funded project PCA II – Kyrgyzstan. From 2003 until February 2005, she was director of the
International Unit at European Profiles SA. Currently, she is managing director of Euroscope Ltd.
Ms Virginia Mercouri
Press officer, Publicis Consultants, Belgium
Science communicator
Virginia Mercouri has broad professional experience in communication and European Affairs at
both the European and national levels. Currently she works for Publicis Consultants as the press
contact for the Community Research and Development Information Service, CORDIS. She worked
for one year in the Audiovisual Service of the European Commission, and following this as a
consultant for the Communication, Enlargement and Regional DGs. She has been involved in the
pre-selection, monitoring and final evaluation of EU-funded projects for the strengthening of the
media and democratic institutions in the new Member States, Bulgaria and Romania. She has
carried out a feasibility study for the Commission for the opening of the MEDIA II Programme for
Bulgaria. Ms Mercouri started her professional career in television, as a producer of a programme
for enterprising and innovative people. She has been involved in the publication of the European
Dialogue magazine, and has published numerous articles in national and European media. She
holds masters degrees in journalism and in European studies from the College of Europe, Bruges.
Mr Manfred Meyer
Consultant, Educational Broadcasting, Munich, Germany
Education through the
media
Before his retirement from active service, Mr Meyer was deputy head of the Internationales
Zentralinstitut für das Jugend- und Bildungsfernsehen (International Central Institute for Youth and
Educational Television, IZI), a documentation and information centre at the Bayerischer Rundfunk
(Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation) founded in 1965. In his capacity as specialist on the role of
television in out-of-school education, he gave talks in various countries and evaluated educational
broadcasting projects, especially in Latin America. He organised international conferences on
specific aspects of educational broadcasting and published reports and books on related subjects,
including health and science education through the broadcast media and the impact of educational
programmes on TV (see www.izi.de). He was a jury member, and twice president, of the former Prix
Télévision Jeunesse organised by France’s national scientific research centre, the CNRS, in Paris.
67
THE EXPERT PANEL
Dr Steve Miller
Professor of Science Communication and Planetary Science,
University College London, United Kingdom
Science communication,
astronomy, planetary science Since 2002, Dr Miller has been head of the Science and Technology Studies Department which
covers the history and philosophy of science, as well as science communication and policy. He
is co-author (with Dr Jane Gregory) of Science in Public: communication, culture and credibility
(Perseus Books). Prior to joining UCL in 1986, he was a political journalist for the Labour
Party in London. His science-and-society interests include the European dimension to science
communication. He currently directs the FP6 project ESConet Workshops, which involves science
communication trainers from 12 European countries delivering training workshops to other
EU-funded research networks. Professor Miller was a member of the UK Particle Physics and
Astronomy Research Council’s (PPARC) Science and Society Advisory Panel for ten years, and is
now a member of the Royal Observatory Greenwich Advisory Committee. With his science hat on,
he runs a group carrying out observations on and modelling of the giant planets, and is chair of
PPARC’s Solar System Advisory Panel.
Dr Luisa Minoli
EU adviser and author, API Varese and INNOVARE, Italy
EU-funded research
Dr Minoli is responsible for EU projects at API Varese (The Association of Small and Medium-sized
Enterprises of the Varese Province) promoting the interests of, and providing services to, associated
enterprises in the field of European research programmes, and encouraging their participation
in EU-funded projects. She is the coordinator of the technical committee of INNOVARE, the
magazine of the Italian Confederation of SMEs, and the author of numerous articles focused on
European research.
Mr Hanns-Joachim
Neubert
Communications consultant, ScienceCom, Hamburg, Germany
Dr Jussi Nuorteva
Director-General, National Archives Services, Helsinki, Finland
Biological sciences and
technology
Archiving and document
management, science policy
and communication
68
During his 26 years in science journalism, Mr Neubert’s has, among other things, edited books
and journals, written numerous articles for German, British and US magazines and directed
documentaries. He spent most of the 1990s working as press officer for the German Ministry of
Science and Technology before becoming a freelance journalist and communications consultant in
such fields as biotechnology and nanotechnology. He is president of TELI, the German association
of science and technology writers, and vice-president of the European Union of Science Journalists’
Associations (EUSJA). He has travelled the world lecturing and advising on science and policy,
and spent five years researching marine planktology and microbiology in the northern and Baltic
region. He is currently acting as mentor to Anglophone African science journalists within a twoyear mentoring project organised by the World Federation of Science Journalist (WFSJ).
Prior to taking up his current post, in 2003, Dr Nuorteva was secretary-general of the Finnish
Literature Society for three years and of the Academy of Finland’s Research Council for Culture
and Society for two. A historian by trade, he has documented the history of science, especially in
universities, until the 17th century and written extensively on this and other subjects in academic
and popular publications. His passion for science communication shows in his career through his
membership of several learned societies and scientific academies. He honed his writing skills during
a four-year stint with the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) as a science journalist. He was
president of the Finnish Association of Science Editors and Journalists from 2000 to 2002 and
now chairs the governmental Committee for Public Information, which is central to the field of
communication and non-fiction writing in Finland. He is also secretary-general of the Delegation
of the Finnish Academies of Science and Letters and chairman of the organising committee of the
Turku International Book Fair.
DESCARTES SCIENCE COMMUNICATION PRIZE
Mr István Palugyai
2006
Science editor, Népszabadság newspaper, Budapest, Hungary
Media studies and science
communication
With more than 25 years of experience in science journalism, in both printed and electronic
media, Mr Palugyai is well placed to comment on the evolution of scientific communication
over the decades. In addition to his editorial responsibilities on the weekly science, medicine,
environment and IT pages at Népszabadság – Hungary’s leading broadsheet with a circulation of
up to 160 000 – he is also president of the European Union of Science Journalists’ Associations
(EUSJA) and vice-president of the World Federation of Science Journalists (WFSJ). His stated
ambition in these roles is to strengthen co-operation between European science journalists and
to raise the level of journalism in this field across Europe and worldwide, as well as the training
of science journalism.
Ms Mercè Piqueras
Science writer and communicator, Barcelona, Spain
Science communication,
science editing, and science
in society
With more than 15 years of experience as a freelancer with the Microbial Ecology Group of the
University of Barcelona (ES), Ms Piqueras has also developed a career in science editing and
science communication. She is staff editor of International Microbiology and a freelance science
writer. She is the president of the Catalan Association for Scientific Communication (ES) and a
member of the Executive Councils of the European Association of Science Editors and the Catalan
Society for the History of Science and Technology (ES).She is also a member of several committees
on science in society and science communication (Autonomous Government of Catalonia, City
Council of Barcelona, Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation, and the Catalonia Science
Week). Ms Piqueras also sits on the Women’s Council of Barcelona and has been an active member
of the committees organising the Barcelona Year of Science (2007) and the European Science
Open Forum 2008. She is the co-author of Walks through the scientific world of Barcelona, now
into its second edition, and was awarded the prestigious Premi de Literatura Científica 2004 for
her popular science book Cròniques de l’altra veritat.
Dr Olivier Retout
Head of International Relations, Royal Belgium Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS),
Brussels, Belgium
Science communication
Dr Retout created the International Relations service at RBINS in 1998. Prior to that, he was the
executive director of Mediascience International, a Brussels-based scientific press agency he
founded in 1989. There he created and managed VIPS, an original scientific press service which
published (monthly) more than 500 scientific articles in five languages, all validated by scientific
sources and edited under the sole responsibility of the chief editor. In parallel, Dr Retout has
produced and directed several scientific documentaries and performed many field missions for
the European Commission as an expert in communication. Since receiving his PhD in chemistry
in 1984, he has been a science communication generalist. This has qualified him to assess the
potential value of a product or service designed for the general public.
Ms Magdalena
Ruiz de Elvira
Science journalism
Head of science desk, El Pais, Madrid, Spain
Ms Ruiz de Elvira is a well-known Spanish journalist with an engineering background who
specialises in writing about science and technology. As head of the science desk at El Pais, Spain’s
leading daily newspaper, she is the editor of the prestigious weekly pages on science and technology
(called Futuro). She is currently vice-president of the Spanish Association for the Communication
of Science (AECC). After witnessing and reporting on events in recent history, such as the AIDS
pandemic, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster, the cloning of Dolly the sheep, climate
change, and the advances made in astronomy, cosmology and the exploration of space, she is
familiar with all aspects of international science and science communication. She is the author of
Eureka (Editorial Planeta, 2000), a book on scientific advances in the 20th century, and has been
awarded several prizes for scientific and technological journalism during her career of more than
20 years in the field.
69
THE EXPERT PANEL
Ms Šárka Speváková
Science and technology in
the media
Editor of Popularis, a science and technology programme on Czech TV, Prague,
Czech Republic
Ms Speváková has held her present position as editor of the TV programme Popularis (which
is produced by the independent producer Herafilm) since 2003. She is responsible both for the
programme’s development strategy and the contents of individual episodes. Prior to Popularis,
Ms Speváková was editor of the science and technology supplement of the economic daily
Hospodarske noviny. She has also worked as editor-in-chief of the chemical industry’s monthly
journal Chemicky prumysl, editor of educational programming on TV Nova, and deputy editorin-chief of the monthly technical magazine Technicky magazin. She has held other science- and
technology-related positions in the print and electronic media.
Dr Eva-Maria Streier
Head of Press Relations, German Research Foundation, Bonn, Germany
Media studies and
production
A journalist by training, Dr Streier has an academic background in the humanities (American
Studies, History and Political Science). She has spent more than 20 years in science communication
as head of the Press and Public Relations Department of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
(DFG). The DFG serves all branches of science, including the humanities, by funding research
projects and facilitating co-operation among researchers, and has an annual budget of 1.5 billion
euros. It also advises parliaments and government on scientific questions and establishes contacts
with the scientific community abroad.
Dr Andreas Trepte
Managing Editor of News/Press and Chief Curator of the ‘Science Tunnel’ expo,
Max Planck Society (MPG), Munich, Germany
Science press relations and
exhibitions
With some 15 years spent in science communication and a background in social science,
economics and humanities, Dr Trepte has built up a noteworthy career. Since 1991, he has worked
at the MPG managing various programmes and projects, such as setting up 27 MP research units
in eastern Germany, and preparing numerous studies and exposés about cutting-edge research
and technology. As managing editor of MPG’s science news releases and website, he has written
and edited a range of material relating to new findings in all disciplines of science. Recently, he
was involved in setting up a new web portal and content management system for MPG. This
builds on his interest in new web technology, research at the cutting edge and open access. In
2005, he initiated the ‘Science Tunnel’, a new MPG multimedia exhibition portraying the frontiers
of modern science, which was exhibited very successfully in Tokyo, Singapore and Shanghai.
Dr Anne Katrin
Werenskiold
Head of EU Liaison Office, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Martinsried,
Germany
Life sciences, EU research
policy
A biologist by training, Dr Werenskiold pursued a research career in developmental and cancer
biology for 20 years. Accepting new challenges in science management, she then moved to the
MPI in Martinsried in 2001. There she has established the EU Liaison Office, a service supporting
researchers in their efforts to acquire Union research funding and the management of research
projects. Her present tasks include a wide array of responsibilities, largely accommodating her
passion for science communication. These range from advising scientists on funding opportunities
via the coordination, writing, and/or editing of research proposals, to the coordination, scientific
management, and public relations work for EU projects (Interaction Proteome, 3DEM NoE, etc.). In
addition, Dr Werenskiold is active in communicating science to schools by regularly organising ‘lab
days’ for pupils.
Ms Tina Zethraeus
Head of Information Office, Ministry of Education, Research and Culture,
Stockholm, Sweden
Science communication
Ms Zethraeus took up her position with the Swedish government in 2006. Prior to that, she had
various positions as a journalist at the Swedish Radio, the head of media relations at Uppsala
University and as a project manager at the Swedish Research Council. Her main professional goal is
to stimulate the exchange between civil society and the research community. Her major initiative
in this field has been the national media service ‘Expertanswer’ which helps journalists to find
scientists to interview and secures the international coverage of Swedish research news. She has
championed numerous activities to improve science communication and is especially interested in
international co-operation and benchmarking.
70
DESCARTES SCIENCE COMMUNICATION PRIZE
2006
Former members of the Expert Panel:
Dr Monica Alexandru (2004)
Scientific and technical project assistant, ERA-Watch, Institute for Prospective
Technological Studies (IPTS), JRC DG
Mr Jacques-Olivier Baruch (2004)
Journalist and President of the French Science Journalists Association (AJSPI),
Paris, France
Dr David Boak (2005)
Director of Communications at the Royal Society, London, United Kingdom
Ms Deborah Cohen (2005)
Editor of Radio Science at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC),
United Kingdom
Ms Susan Dahl (2005)
Education Specialist, Fermi National Accelarator Laboratory (Fermilab), USA
Mrs Maria Dimitrova (2004-2005)
Editor at the Bulgarian National Radio Station, Sofia, Bulgaria
Mr Ismael Gaona Pérez (2004)
Coordinating Editor, Grupo Joly de Información, Seville, Spain
Mr Patrice Goldberg (2004-2005)
Head of the Science Team, RTBF, Brussels, Belgium
Dr André Jaumotte (2005)
Emeritus Professor, Free University of Brussels, Belgium
Mrs Daniele Jörg (2004)
Producer, WDR Television, Cologne, Germany
Dr Sergey Komarov (2004)
Deputy Editor-in-Chief, InformNauka Science News Agency, Moscow, Russia
Mrs Jeanne Monfret (2004-2005)
Project Manager, French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), France
Dr Andrew Moore (2005)
Programme Manager for Science & Society, European Molecular Biology
Organisation (EMBO), Germany
Dr Cornelia Munteanu (2005)
Expert from the Romanian National Commission for UNESCO, Romania
Dr Vladimir Nekvasil (2005)
Senior Scientist, Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Physics, Czech Republic
Ms Lara Ricci (2004)
Writer/Editor, Il Sole-24 Ore, Milan, Italy
Mrs Silvia Rosa-Brusin (2004)
Presenter and Deputy Editor-in-Chief of ‘Leonardo’, RAI Television, Turin, Italy
Mr Walter Staveloz (2004-2005)
Executive Director Ecsite, Brussels, Belgium
71
René Descartes
To think...
is to be
The philosopher, mathematician and scientist René
Descartes (1596-1650), also known as Cartesius, was
a pioneer of the Age of Reason and was one of the key
players of the European scientific revolution. Like other
leading thinkers of his time, he stressed the separation of
reason and faith. This meant that he could be sceptical
concerning the philosophical and theological positions
taken by the Church, while maintaining his Catholic faith.
He is known both as the ‘founder of modern philosophy’
due to his attempt to explore fresh philosophical avenues
and the ‘father of modern mathematics’ because of the
headway he made in reconciling different strands of the
discipline.
Descartes believed that the world was created in such a
way that its workings are amenable to human intelligence.
He invented analytical geometry – which bridged the
gap between algebra and geometry and paved the way
for calculus – and developed a detailed account of the
physical universe in terms of matter and motion.
His famous work Meditations on First Philosophy is now
perhaps best remembered for the statement ‘cogito, ergo
sum’ (‘I think, therefore I am’). This simple declaration was
the outcome of his attempt to arrive at a fundamental set
of principles that one can know as true without any doubt.
72
He posited that the only certainties that could be asserted
with any confidence were simply the fact of doubting itself,
and the inference that something exists which is doing
the doubting, i.e. Descartes himself. Through a process of
hyperbolic doubt and reasoning, he discarded perception
as unreliable and instead admitted only scientifically and
mathematically based deduction as a method.
Born in France, Descartes was the quintessential European
scientist who travelled widely around Europe. Between
1620 and 1628, he spent time in Hungary, Germany, Italy
and France. His most productive years were spent in The
Netherlands – where he wrote Discourse on the Method,
published in 1637, and other major works. There, he met
the Dutch philosopher and scientist Isaac Beeckman, who
sparked his interest in mathematics and the new physics,
particularly the problem of falling heavy bodies.
He relocated to Stockholm in 1649 to become Queen
Christina of Sweden’s teacher but died of pneumonia a year
later. Like the Enlightenment scholars who followed in his
footsteps, Descartes corresponded widely – most notably
with the Cambridge Platonist Henry More (1614-1683)
– and was one of the first people to suggest a universal
language through which people of different nationalities
could exchange ideas.
European Commission
EUR 22418 — Six years of Descartes Prize winners
Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities
2006 — 72 pp. — 21.0 x 29.7 cm
ISBN 978-92-79-04905-7
SALES AND SUBSCRIPTIONS
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Contact the sales agent of your choice and place your order.
KI-NA-22418-EN-C
THE DESCARTES PRIZES
Recognising the power of knowledge
Scientific excellence is paramount for Europe to succeed in the competitive environment
of international research and scientific development. But is this such a new concept?
Actually, no. Much of Europe’s prosperity has indeed been based on its ability to
harness the potential of knowledge.
René Descartes (1596-1650) – the world-famous philosopher, mathematician and
scientist – understood the power of knowledge over 350 years ago. The prize that bears
his name acknowledges that science is rarely the preserve of a single brilliant mind in
a single country. The sharing of ideas and means yields a whole that is greater than
the sum of its parts. His willingness to share his thoughts and explore relationships
with his peers is a poignant metaphor for what the European Commission is trying to
achieve with the prestigious yearly event, the Descartes Prizes. Winning a Descartes
Prize is not meant to compensate scientists financially for their hard work, but is a
token of how the European Union appreciates cross-border scientific excellence and
science communication.