London Nanotech Center Appoints Co-Director

The London Centre for Nanotechnology (LCN) announced it has appointed David McComb, PhD, reader in materials characterization at Imperial College London, as its co-director. McComb will lead LCN, a nanotech joint venture between Imperial and University College London (UCL) based in Bloomsbury and South Kensington, with UCL professor Gabriel Aeppli. McComb joined the Department of Materials at Imperial as a senior lecturer in 2003. His current research concentrates on the development and application of nanoanalytical electron microscopy techniques for the study of chemistry, structure and bonding at the interfaces of atoms. He leads a research group of 17 and has published 90 papers and patents. Established in 2002, the LCN brings together Imperial and UCL researchers across a range of disciplines including medicine, chemistry, physics, electrical and electronic engineering, materials and earth science. Its main research areas are health care, information technology and the environment. The LCN was recently awarded a £5.5 million ($11 million) government grant to develop new nanoscale measurement tools and installed a Titan transmission electron microscope.