A REPORT into whether atomic experiments by a Nobel scientist led to the deaths of Manchester University staff will be published this month.

Ernest Rutherford carried out Nobel prize-winning nuclear research at the university between 1907 and 1919.

His laboratories were later used as offices for staff at the university's psychology department.

Deaths

Campaigners believe harmful materials used by Rutherford have contaminated the rooms and may have led to the deaths of six former members of staff.

Workplace-death expert David Coggon was commissioned to investigate possible links in October last year and is set to deliver his findings.

The independent investigator, who works jointly for Southampton University and the Medical Research Council, has previously looked into mobile phone safety and given evidence on whether war veterans were made ill through depleted uranium shells.

His findings will be reported to university staff and family members at a meeting on September 30, before being made publicly available.

Psychologists Tom Whiston, Arthur Reader, and Hugh Wagner, who worked in or near the former labs, have all died from pancreatic cancer within the last two years.

Another researcher, John Clark, who also used the rooms, died in 1992 from a brain tumour, aged 62.

Fears were also raised over the cases of IT worker Vanessa Santos-Leitao, 25, who died from a brain tumour in February and lab assistant Moira Joy Hayward, who died from cancer in 1984, aged 48.

Rutherford is known to have used dangerous materials such as mercury, radon and polonium when the dangers of radioactive material were only just being understood.

The university has always denied a link and a number of independent radiation experts have played down the likelihood of exposure to lingering radiation contributing to the deaths. But campaigners say that the death of three colleagues from pancreatic cancer - a relatively uncommon form of cancer - is statistically relevant.

As part of the probe, tests for mercury as well as background radiation measurements have been carried out in the former labs and other nearby offices.

Manchester University has also denied suggestions that the rooms were hazardous. But decontamination work was carried out on the former laboratory in 1999.

The Health and Safety Executive say current radiation levels in the building are completely safe.

Staff working in the building first raised worries about radiation levels in the 1970s.

Last year, three researchers based at the building published their own report into possible health risks.

Lawyer Liz Graham, who is representing a number of families with concerns, has been among those pushing for an investigation.

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