From RONALD PETHIG
Andy Coghlan’s article ‘Speedy detector will pinpoint polluters’ (Technology,
8 February) failed to give due credit to researchers at Bangor University
who played a crucial role in the invention and development of a spectrometer
for distinguishing different kinds of biological cells. The article describes
how Bernard Betts and Jeremy Hawkes of the University of York developed
a prototype spectrometer based on a phenomenon called dielectrophoresis.
I am sure that Hawkes, whose doctorate at Bangor was supervised by me,
would readily acknowledge that Julian Burt and Jonathan Price – two of his
former companions at Bangor – developed the concept on which the York team’s
prototype spectrometer is based. They developed the concept with Talal Al-Ameen
– not with Hawkes – while working for their doctorates. The concept was
refined in 1987 through collaboration between Bangor and Frederick Becker
and Peter Gascoyne at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and this
work is documented in the scientific literature. Hawkes’s own move into
dielectrophoresis was facilitated in November 1989, after he had acquired
from us the required microelectrodes.
A major effort in dielectro-phoresis continues at Bangor, and we collaborate
with other groups around the world, funded by several sources.
Ronald Pethig University of Wales, Bangor
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