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Contents : T HE U NIVERSITY O F B R I T I S HC O L U M B I A UBC REPORTS 8 - 1 e- . '9. Budget spells changes for universities by Stephen Fornacs S taff w riter T he March 6 federal budget heldg ood n ewsandbadnews for the country's universities. Further cutsto several major sources t of research funding o be implemented in 1998/99 m ean university rrsearchrrs w ill be forcedto struggle harderto gain funding. The creation ofa new health services research fund.however. w i l l allow Canadian universities tobenefit society through funding of healthservicesresearch projects in a variety of arcas. including the social sciences. A s p art of the health servicesw x r c h r w ill commit initiative thegovernment $65 million over the next five years to f und research on what works and what doesn't in Canada's health care system. is new "The health research fund money that will definitely provide new and exciting opportunities for people in TRIUMF photo many disciplines." said Bernard Bressler. UBC vice-president Research. "The opportunities will appearinarange of UBC's TRIUMF cyclotron is the location of Canada's only proton therapy facility used to treat eye melanoma. Patients' heads immobilized with a mesh are mask and bite-block while a fast-moving of subatomic particles beam areas including the social sciences nurs(protons) are directed at thetumour in 90-second doses. See BUDGET P age 4 1 World-class physicist TRIUMF takes steady receives Killam Prize shot at eye cancer Physicist William Unruh celebrates light can escape. ity has treated 3 p atients sincet o pened b y Charles Ker 1 i his 20th anniversary at UBC this year Unruh's discovery of acceleration rain August 1995. withone ofCanada'smost distinguisheddiation is of particular significance. He Staff writer academic awards-the Killam Prize for found that by accelerating a n object in a Theprocedure involves divertinga W hen Sciences. lan H annam was small fractionof the TRlUMF cyclotron's vacuum (nowknown as the Unruh the Natural UBC Prof. A informed of the malignant tumour in his or proton beam into a small specially deThree $50 000Killam prizes are pre- vacuum) where no matterradiation is left eye last year his initial response was signed chamber. There the beam passes s ented annually the by t he exist. thought to obiect "when a m I going to lose it " of through a nozzle at the end which is a Canada Counciiin recogh e a t su pa n da c t s as nition of world-class Surgical removal of the eye was the m etal aperture sculpted to the exact dit hough itwere surrounded For achievements by Canadistandard treatment eye melanoma for mensions of the patient's tumour. for by radiation. The object's is many years. Today precision proton beam approximately 90 s econds the tumour ansinthenaturalscitemperature(theUnruh ences. health sciences therapy is t he treatment of choice for uniformlybombarded by protons at a temperature) rises proin some tumours. r ate of 100 million per second. and engineering. portion to acceleration. This brief proton blast repeated four Hannam was treatedat Harvard UniUnruh 50 is recogThe formula accelerafor is versity in Boston one three U S . s ites times over four consecutive days c apaof nized research for on tion radiation together with gravity andtheoretical offering the therapy. The Harvard cyclo- ble of d estroying the tumour with milliStephen Hawkmg's discovcosmology-the study of ery that black holes are hot tron has helped about 1 500 melanoma metre precision. "Like little cannonballs theprotons the origin and evolution patients with its proton beams over the revealed unsuspected conlast 20 y ears. of the universe. destroy damaged cells and break bonds in nections between quantum Unruhjoined UBC's in eye " said Six m onths ago UBC became theonly the DNAas they slow downthe theory gravity and thermoPhysicsDept. in 1976. A Canadian site offer the painless therapyEwart Blackmore head of T RIUMFs a cto dynamics. decade later he became diu 1 for those with malignant eye melanoma. celeratortechnology division which de" So i t turns out that delivery system. "We can Located on campus t t he TFUUMF parti- signed the beam rectoroftheCosmologyProa our notionof a p article is gram at the Canadian Institute forAd- a relative concept which depends on cle accelerator the proton therapy facilSee PROTON P age 4 vanced Research (CIAR). The private non- your state of motion " said Unruh. "If profit organization has created a series of y ou accelerate you can see particles Canadian-basedinternationalresearch if youwere whichyouwouldn'tsee networks to foster creative approaches to sitting still." the study of complex problems. J o h n Wheeler Unruhs mentor from Unruh's expertise lies in the comPrinceton University and the man who Equity Election 3 bined effects of gravity and quantum gave blackholestheirname called whole new meaning mechanics-the theoretical science Unruh's formula onethe most impor- A political party stock mark

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