Update from LINXS Director
Christmas approaches and, as usual, there seems to be a huge collective effort to complete things and move them along before everything closes for the festive season. At LINXS this has been accompanied by hives of activity for the Themes, as well as webinars, and hackathons throughout the autumn period. The range and breadth of events is exactly what LINXS is all about – creating a space for researchers to come together in different contexts, creating unique scientific opportunities.
In early November, Tony Watts (Oxford) came to LINXS and gave an excellent talk on the involvement of water in receptor function. In the following week the Quantum Materials Theme (led by Andrew Boothroyd – also from Oxford) had its kickoff meeting. The closing meeting of the IPDD Theme was The Power of Scattering and Imaging in Understanding and Treating Disease held on 26th November at the Medical Faculty in the new Forum Medicum building. This was a truly exceptional event with some outstanding talks on biomedical imaging at the tissue & organ levels, as well as molecular level science on amyloids and antibodies in pathology and disease. The last physical IPDD event was a workshop on Small-Angle Scattering: Modelling and Illustration. Early December brought a very well-attended conference on Neutron Activation Analysis for Cultural Heritage Applications.
On our website, you can read interviews and articles from our recent events, and we also highlight two of our incoming Themes: Advanced Rheometry for Neutron and X-ray science (RheoMAXESS), and Advanced Imaging in Deeptech Academy, (AIDA). Our first national theme, RheoMAXESS, is led by Roland Kádár from Chalmers University of Technology, and aims to unite soft matter science and soft matter processing with the focal point of rheology – as a uniquely positioned analytical tool that connects both worlds across disciplines. AIDA is led by Martin Bech, from Medical Radiation Physics at Lund University, in close collaboration with Karina Thånell, researcher and group manager for the Imaging unit at MAX IV. They envisage AIDA as providing a structure for learning, education and advancement on imaging techniques: enabling the community to grow, while also pushing forward methods and approaches.
Our agenda for LINXS inaugural conference, 17-18 June 2025, to celebrate our move onto Science Village is also taking shape – even though summer now feels far away! Make sure to mark the dates in your calendar. Registration will open in early January 2025.
Note that the next call for LINXS Themes is now open, with a closing deadline for stage 1 applications of 31st January 2025. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have interest in applying for a Theme, be it in Hard Matter, Soft Matter, or Life Sciences.
Note also that the third AMBER call has just opened – with a closing date of 24th February 2025. The first AMBER postdocs have just taken up their positions and we are looking forward to their scientific progress!
Finally, we thank all of those who came to our (somewhat early) Christmas mingle!
LINXS Director Trevor Forsyth. Photo: Kennet Ruona.