Here's to the magicians and the healers

Cécile Girardot during her talk

Here’s to the magicians and healers! - said Cécile Girardot, from the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, in her talk at a recent workshop on nanosafety hosted at LINXS. She was referring to the people who develop processes and tools for nanomaterials and the people who act as the interface between nanoscience subjects and the public respectively.

LINXS hosts a range of events each year, and different departments, institutions and organsations make use of LINXS’ space. In early January, people from NFFA - Nanoscience Foundries and Fine Analysis and local researchers from NanoLund organised a workshop on Nanosafety “Safe by Design & NFFA“ focusing on the next level for NFFA, which is likely to include a dedicated work package on nanosafety issues.

– The workshop on nanosafety and design was a good example of when a LINXS hosted event also ties in to the science of LINXS and its working themes. It is great to see this type of synergy and crossover, and it increases interactions between LINXS and other organisations, says Anna Ntinidou, Head of Administration at LINXS.

The community around NanoLund has since 2015 been part of a distributed European open infrastructure: NFFA - Nanoscience Foundries and Fine Analysis. This infrastructure offers the widest range of tools for research at the nanoscale in Europe, and counts among its partners the Lund Nano Lab and the national Centre for High Resolution Electron Microscopy (nCHREM) situated in Lund.

The core idea of NFFA is to open up auxiliary infrastructure co-located with synchrotrons and neutron facilities. The project has been very successful, with a track record so far of 14 finished calls that have given access to 794 users in 1377 nanotechnology lab sessions all over Europe.

Associate Professor Ivan Maximov

“The participation in NFFA has been very important for the Lund Nano Lab,. Not only does it increase our contact surface with international researchers, it also integrates us in an offer at a European level with everything that involves in terms of being ready and having capacity to work as an open infrastructure internationally” - says Ivan Maximov, Associate Professor and Coordinator of Exploratory Nanotechnology at NanoLund.

Some of the cheerful participants of the workshop “Safe by Design & NFFA“ on Nanosafety issues. Photo by Ivan Maximov