SCIENTISTS are not, in general, as good as they should be at explaining to people what they do, and why.

Mention radiation, genetic engineering, stem cell research, nuclear power or animal testing and many people will conjure up spectres of horror and threats to humanity.

And yet each of these, and many other similarly controversial areas of scientific research and application, have the capability to confer substantial benefits on humankind.

So it is good to find a York-based company that is working at the forefront of scientific research that will bring about faster drug development while reducing the use of animal testing in clinical trials. I'm talking about Xceleron, the brainchild of Professor Colin Garner.

During drug development it eventually becomes important to introduce the new compound into human beings so that researchers can look at where the drug ends up and how it behaves in the body. This is usually done by making the drug molecule radioactive as there are quite sensitive ways of detecting radioactivity.

The trouble with this is that highly radioactive compounds can be damaging to health and, therefore, their use in humans is very carefully controlled.

Xceleron's business is to measure the amount of a radioactive substance with sensitivity so that very low levels of radioactivity can be used and regulatory approval for the testing is no longer required. The firm's input speeds up the development of new drugs.

If you imagine that just a single litre of a coloured dye were to be poured into the entire world's oceans, Xceleron's technology would still be able to detect dye molecules.

It does this by using the most sensitive analytical technique ever developed - Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS).

This awe-inspiring achievement comes with some appropriately impressive scientific equipment. Normal mass spectrometers are everyday pieces of laboratory equipment, but this one is special. Most obviously, it takes up about the space of a tennis court rather than the normal small area on top of a laboratory bench.

Xceleron was created in 1997 as a spin-out from the University of York. It now has two locations in York, and one in Gaithersburg, USA and employs approximately 20 people including five scientists with PhDs.

Its biomedical AMS technology has already been used to assist more than 75 biotech and pharmaceutical organisations, including 15 of the world's top 20 pharmaceutical companies, in their drug development activities. Founded on the premise that the best model for man is man, Xceleron offers a solutions-oriented approach to reduce drug attrition in the early clinical phases of drug development, thereby decreasing time and cost. The company received £2 million of venture capital funding in April 2005 from Close Venture Management and Foursome Investments to assist in expanding the firm's development activities.

Professor Colin Garner, pictured, Xceleron's chief executive, said: "It is gratifying that the pioneering work of Xceleron here in York is starting to be adopted by pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

"Xceleron has demonstrated that its technology makes human clinical studies safer as well as reducing animal use in the process. Xceleron's next step in its development is to create an AMS centre in the USA which it is aiming to do in 2006".

So it is good to see another York company progressing well, making a very positive contribution to improvements in pharmaceutical development and human health care, and playing an important role in international markets.

Not only this, but the pioneering work of entrepreneur Colin Garner means the drug development process is greatly enhanced; there is much less reliance on animal testing; and the potentially hazardous effects of radiation on humans are also greatly reduced.

Updated: 11:13 Wednesday, December 14, 2005