• S.L. Smith, C.D. Beard, R.K. Buckley, S.R. Buckley, P.A. Corlett, D.J. Dunning, P. Goudket, S.F. Hill, F. Jackson, S.P. Jamison, J.K. Jones, L.B. Jones, P.A. McIntosh, J.W. McKenzie, K.J. Middleman, B.L. Militsyn, A.J. Moss, B.D. Muratori, J.F. Orrett, P.J. Phillips, Y.M. Saveliev, D.J. Scott, B.J.A. Shepherd, N. Thompson, A.E. Wheelhouse, P.H. Williams
  STFC/DL/ASTeC, Daresbury, Warrington, Cheshire
• K. Harada
  KEK, Ibaraki
• D.J. Holder, P. Weightman
  The University of Liverpool, Liverpool
• M. Surman
  STFC/DL/SRD, Daresbury, Warrington, Cheshire

ALICE (Accelerators and Lasers In Combined Experiments), a 35 MeV energy recovery linac based light source, is being commissioned and developed as an experimental R&D facility for a wide range of projects that could employ synchronized ultra-short (<1ps) electron bunches and light pulses. A suit of light sources includes an IR FEL, Compton backscattering (CBS) X-ray source, high power THz source and a multi-TW femtosecond laser. The full energy recovery and coherently enhanced, due to shortness of the electron bunches, THz radiation have been already demonstrated on ALICE. Completion of the first phase of the CBS x-ray source experiment and first lasing of the IR FEL by the end of 2009. Status of ALICE experimental facility and latest results on FEL, THz, and CBS development are reported in this paper.

• P. Weightman
  The University of Liverpool, Liverpool

This talk will explore the contribution that research with Free Electron Lasers (FELs) can make to the understanding of living things. Physicists can play an important part in establishing the essential characteristics of life as demonstrated by Schoedingers book "What is Life?" (1944). While there has been considerable progress in the determination of the structures of biological molecules using x-ray diffraction there has been very little progress in studying the conformational changes that are the key to understanding the mechanisms by which biological systems self-organise and maintain their functions. We lack methods of making real time observations of conformational change in proteins and exciting biological systems with the long wavelength radiation that is made available to biological systems at room temperature through the release of free energy from chemical processes. An outline will be given of the crucial role that FELs can play in this field and results will be presented on the real time observation of conformational change in proteins.

Slides