[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 147 (Monday, October 20, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2090]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




RECOGNIZING THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ADVANCED LIGHT SOURCE RESEARCH 
                                 CENTER

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. BARBARA LEE

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Monday, October 20, 2003

  Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, this Wednesday, October 22, 2003, marks the 
10th anniversary of one of our Nation's premier scientific research 
centers, the Advanced Light Source (ALS), a Department of Energy 
facility located at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The 9th 
District of California is the proud home of this remarkable facility 
and many of the scientists, students and administrators at the ALS are 
my constituents.
  The ALS is a national user facility that generates intense light for 
scientific and technological research. It produces light in the x-ray 
region of the electromagnetic spectrum that is one billion times 
brighter than the sun. As one of the world's brightest sources of 
ultraviolet and soft x-ray beams--and the world's first third-
generation synchrotron light source in its energy range--the ALS makes 
previously impossible studies possible.
  The light is directed along 27 different beamlines toward 
experimental workstations, giving a wide range of researchers almost 
simultaneous access to the light source. This extraordinary tool offers 
unprecedented opportunities for state-of-the art research in materials 
science, biology, chemistry, physics, and the environmental sciences. 
Ongoing research topics include the electronic structure of matter, 
protein crystallography, ozone photochemistry, x-ray microscopy of 
biological samples, and optics testing.
  Since its inception in 1993, the ALS has been at the forefront of 
science. Among its many accomplishments, it has helped reveal how 
bacteria resist antibiotics, how inexpensive and efficient solar cells 
can be fabricated, and how strange substances like quasicrystals 
possess properties never before seen. And among the ALS's many 
distinguished users is Roderick MacKinnon, a biophysicist who recently 
won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry based in part on research conducted at 
ALS beamline 5.0.2. His prize-winning foray into the properties of ion 
channels in cell membranes could lead to potential treatments for 
diseases like cystic fibrosis, epilepsy, and heart arrhythmia.
  In the future, the ALS will stay at the forefront of science thanks 
to the dedicated staff at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and the more 
than 1,200 scientists who each year travel from around the world to 
conduct cutting edge research.
  I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating the dedicated 
employees at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory past and present who have 
worked so diligently to reap the full benefits of one of the world's 
great tools of science.

                          ____________________