Manchester University has launched an independent investigation to assess radiation levels in a research building following the deaths of five former staff members.

Occupational cancer expert, Professor David Coggon of the University of Southampton, in association with the Health Protection Agency, will carry out a programme of analysis throughout the Rutherford Building.

The investigation is centered around Room 2.62, previously occupied by Nobel laureate chemist and physicist, Ernest Rutherford, in which high levels of radiation have been detected. Dangerous levels of radioactive radon and polonium were used in many of the laboratories up to 1947.

Prolonged exposure to these elements is known to have a direct relation to the growth of cancerous tumours.

However, a spokesperson from the university said: “We believe the evidence presented to date does not support a connection between the deaths of former staff and possible exposure to radioactive contamination.”

Concern over the issue arose after former colleagues of the late Dr Hugh Wagner, who also occupied room 2.62 and died of pancreatic cancer in 1997, compiled a report detailing the history of radiation in the building.

Dr Wagner's colleagues discovered that the offices they had worked in for over twenty years had been subject to numerous radiological surveys and decontamination. Indeed, a university memo from 1970 expressed the concerns of the physics department over the deaths of four of their staff.

But in spite of obvious health concerns the University deemed it fit to move the psychology department in to the building in 1972, just two years after the physics department had vacated the premises.

At the time the University employed a Radiological Protection Service to monitor the threat. However, the service was considered ineffective and no written documents remain in existence. The first documented evidence dates back to 1999 when an internal report discovered contamination in four rooms, one of which was room 2.62.

Offices on the two floors directly below Room 2.62 and a neighbouring office were also once occupied by staff who have since died of cancer.

Dr John Clark, who worked in the room directly below Wagner’s between 1971 and 1987, died of a brain tumour in 1992, and Dr Arthur Reader, formerly of Room G55—two floors directly below 2.62—was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, finally succumbing to the disease last month.

In addition, computer assistant Vanessa Santos-Leitao, who worked next door to Room 2.62, died suddenly of a brain tumour aged 25 in February 2008.

Further investigation has uncovered another potentially related death from the 1980s – that of lab assistant Moira Hayward, who died from cancer aged 48 and worked in the building as a teenager.

The university spokesperson said: “[The Rutherford Building] was surveyed by an independent specialist company as part of the refurbishment in 2006 and some minor contamination—below levels reportable to the Health and Safety Executive—were found in a limited number of locations.

“Following the release of the report the university felt it needed to address some of the recommendations forwarded. Therefore, we have engaged Professor David Coggon to lead an independent review.

“It is important to stress that we do not believe there to be any risk to current occupants of the Rutherford Building.”