Research at Birkbeck, University of London uses
world-leading neutron sources at ILL and ISIS to demonstrate ozone attacks on
lung surface fluids
A research team from Birkbeck and Royal Holloway Colleges at
the University of London, and Uppsala University in Sweden, have helped explain
how ozone causes severe respiratory problems and thousands of cases of
premature death each year by attacking the fatty lining of our lungs. In a
study published in Langmuir, the team used neutrons from the Institut Laue-Langevin
in Grenoble and the UK’s ISIS Neutron Source to observe how a relatively low
dose of ozone attacks lipid molecules that line the lung’s surface. The
presence of the lipid molecules is crucial for the exchange of oxygen and
carbon dioxide, as they prevent the wet surfaces of the lung from collapsing.