The Wellcome Trust had pledged Pounds 10 million towards a new Pounds 100 million X-ray instrument for Daresbury Laboratories in Cheshire.
The machine, called Diamond, is likely to replace Daresbury's existing Synchrotron Radiation Source which will become obsolete early in the next decade. Around 3,000 scientists, including biologists and chemists, use Daresbury's existing facility.