In the sleepy hillside town in al-Balqa, not far from the Jordan Valley, a grand project is taking shape. The Middle East’s new particle accelerator – the Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science and Applications, or Sesame – is being built.

In a region racked by violence, extremism and the disintegration of nation states, Sesame feels a world apart; the meditative peace of the surrounding countryside belying the advanced stages of construction inside the site, which is due to be formally inaugurated next spring, with the first experiments taking place as early as this autumn.

It’s a miracle it got off the ground in the first place. Sesame’s members are Iran, Pakistan, Israel, Turkey, Cyprus, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan and Bahrain. Iran and Pakistan do not recognise Israel, nor does Turkey recognise Cyprus, and everyone has their myriad diplomatic spats.

Iran, for example, continues to participate despite two of its scientists who were involved in the project, quantum physicist Masoud Alimohammadi and nuclear scientist Majid Shahriari, being assassinated in operations blamed on Israel’s Mossad.

“We’re cooperating very well together,” said Giorgio Paolucci, the scientific director of Sesame. “That’s the dream.”

“I don’t know how many places there are where all these governments have representatives who have the opportunity to come and talk to each other,” he added.

In council meetings, representatives of governments meet and discuss technical issues, and come to agreements, the talks untainted by the perpetual enmity outside the conference halls.

At 130 metres in diameter, Sesame’s particle accelerator is dwarfed by the Large Hadron Collider, the immense structure in Switzerland that last year detected the “God particle”, otherwise known as the Higgs Boson, an elementary particle that gives other fundamental particles their mass. But the project is sophisticated and could have many applications and offer research opportunities for a region that has long grappled with funding shortfalls and lack of political will in the advancement of science.

“There are so many applications that actually we are somehow limited by our fantasy,” said Paolucci. “You can study almost anything. Here we can study everything from isolated atoms to human beings and everything which is in between these two extremes is allowed.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A worker looks at research data at the Sesame facility. Photograph: Kareem Shaheen

Sesame is a synchrotron – a large device that accelerates electrons around a circular tube, guided by magnets and other equipment, close to the speed of light. This generates radiation which is filtered and flows down beamlines – essentially long pipes in which instruments are placed to collect the radiation and perform the various experiments.

Sesame’s scientists plan to open the synchrotron with three main beamlines, though the project can house up to 20. The first is an X-ray beam which scientists say can be used to analyse soil samples and air particles, identifying contaminants in the environment, as well as, potentially, their sources, in a region suffering from high levels of pollution.

The second will be an infrared beamline, which will allow researchers to study living cells and tissue. Some preliminary tests at the centre have focused on studying the evolution of breast cancer cells, potentially opening avenues that would help with much earlier detection.

The last beamline, currently under construction, will be used in protein crystallography, a technique that would allow scientists, among other applications, to study in more depth the structure of viruses and develop drugs that are better able to target them.

Paolucci also hopes to add an imaging beamline – which has a range of uses, from allowing researchers to study archaeological artefacts with more precision and without having to transport them outside the region, to photographing things as subtle as the muscular movements of a fly.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Imaging technology captures the movements of a fly

Archaeologists in Italy have used imaging beamlines in projects as intricate as the study of burnt manuscripts buried in the city of Herculaneum after the legendary eruption of Mount Vesuvius, allowing them to identify the Greek letters in the manuscripts without having to unfold them and risk their disintegration.

Beyond that, Sesame’s creators hope it will spur scientific progress in a region long beset by conflict and strife, offering access to resources that are plentiful in the west but limited in the Middle East, allowing scientists, whether from Israel or Iran, to come together to study the fundamental elements of nature.

Member states also hope to limit some of the region’s brain drain, which is driving young people to research facilities abroad, as well as profit from the expertise they gain from the experiments that will take place.

Those working on the project, which costs over a $100m (£75m), have not lost sight of the big picture either.

“If you go to any university in the region you see more students than any university in Europe,” said Paolucci. “Clearly there is a need there to have a centre like this, and with time it will also be beneficial from an economic point of view.”

As Paolucci walked around the massive hall housing the particle accelerator, he stopped to survey the intricate equipment and the machine taking shape before his eyes.

“It’s really amazing the things you can do,” he said.