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Colin Judge: Testing structural materials in Idaho’s newest hot cell facility
Idaho National Laboratory’s newest facility—the Sample Preparation Laboratory (SPL)—sits across the road from the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF), which started operating in 1975. SPL will host the first new hot cells at INL’s Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) in 50 years, giving INL researchers and partners new flexibility to test the structural properties of irradiated materials fresh from the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) or from a partner’s facility.
Materials meant to withstand extreme conditions in fission or fusion power plants must be tested under similar conditions and pushed past their breaking points so performance and limitations can be understood and improved. Once irradiated, materials samples can be cut down to size in SPL and packaged for testing in other facilities at INL or other national laboratories, commercial labs, or universities. But they can also be subjected to extreme thermal or corrosive conditions and mechanical testing right in SPL, explains Colin Judge, who, as INL’s division director for nuclear materials performance, oversees SPL and other facilities at the MFC.
SPL won’t go “hot” until January 2026, but Judge spoke with NN staff writer Susan Gallier about its capabilities as his team was moving instruments into the new facility.
Junya Kobayashi, Michiyo Okui, Kenshi Komatsu, David J. Chen
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 3 | October 2011 | Pages 1186-1189
Biology | Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Tritium Science and Technology | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12627
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Werner syndrome (WS) is an autosomal recessive disorder associated with premature aging and cancer predisposition caused by mutations at the WRN gene. Several recent reports suggest that accumulation of DNA damage could lead to premature cellular aging. Therefore, WRN might function in DNA damage response, particularly DNA repair. Here, we investigated the role of WRN in DNA repair and genome integrity. WRN protein rapidly accumulated at DNA damage sites and formed discrete nuclear foci only during S phase, but not in G1 phase. WRN-defective WS cells showed the spontaneous accumulation of -H2AX (DSB marker), suggesting that WRN could function to repair the S phase-dependent DNA damage. However, WS cells showed homologous recombination (HR) at normal level, although HR repair functions preferentially during the S phase. Translesion DNA synthesis (TLS) is known as another repair pathway for S phase-dependent DNA damage. WS cells exhibit an increase in spontaneous focus formation of pol and Rad18, which are important for TLS regulation. WS cells also showed the spontaneous ubiquitination of PCNA and increased pol-related gene mutation. Taken together, WRN could work for the regulation of TLS pathway and might also be important to maintain genome integrity under a little DNA damage by tritium.