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Radiation left over from 100-year-old experiments by Ernest Rutherford, the first man to split the atom, could be partly responsible for the deaths of up to four Manchester University staff.
Between 1909 and 1917 New Zealand-born Lord Rutherford conducted experiments in room 2.62 of a red-brick Victorian building,
which now bears his name, in the northern England city.
There he investigated the properties of radon and polonium - which killed the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006 - and experiments using radioactive material were carried out in the room until 1947.
But the building was never tested for radiation and in 1972 it was handed over to the university's psychology department.
Britain's Independent newspaper reported this week that concerns about the building's safety were raised last year after the premature death of the psychologist Hugh Wagner, who died of cancer aged 62, having worked for 20 years in room 2.62.
John Clark, who worked in room 1.54, directly below Dr Wagner's room, died of a brain tumour in 1993.
Last week Arthur Reader, 69, who also worked in the Rutherford building, lost his battle against cancer, fuelling fears among his family that his death was "more than a coincidence".
Manchester Coroner Nigel Meadows has called for an inquest into his death.
"I'm going to have a post-mortem examination to determine whether or not his death was unnatural - that is, whether or not he was exposed to anything during the course of his employment that may have caused or contributed to the cancer," he said.
The newspaper reported there were also concerns over the death of Vanessa Santos-Leitao, who died from a brain tumour in February after being ill for less than a year.
Although the university said there was no evidence of a causal link between the building and the deaths, The Independent said a report by three academics working in the Rutherford Building had revealed a disquiet among workers there.
Precautionary decontamination of the Rutherford was ordered in 1999 when staff began to find rooms and lecture theatres closed off with radiation warning signs.
The academics' report, which accepted there is no causal link established between the deaths and the building, had called for the thousands of members of staff who worked there to be traced if evidence of a health risk is uncovered.
It said there continued to be uncertainty over the nature of the health risks to staff and called for a review of procedures governing workers' wellbeing.
In a statement, the university welcomed the academics' report and is set to announce details of its own independent inquiry into the affair.
The dangers of radioactive material were not fully understood by the pioneers in the field. Marie Curie died from leukaemia in 1934 and her notebooks are still too dangerous to handle.
Lord Rutherford, who died in 1937 aged 66, was born near Nelson.
He studied at Havelock School and then Nelson College and won a scholarship to study at Canterbury College, University of New Zealand.
After gaining his BA, MA and BSc, and doing two years of research at the forefront of electrical technology, in 1895 he travelled to England for postgraduate study at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge.
In 1907 Prof Rutherford took the chair of physics at the University of Manchester. There along with Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden he carried out the Geiger-Marsden experiment, which demonstrated the nuclear nature of atoms.
Lord Rutherford is honoured in New Zealand by having his face appear on the $100 banknote.
- NZPA
