A £150m bid to treat diseases such as cancer by developing the brightest light known to man at a Cheshire laboratory may get the go-ahead within weeks.

Science Minister Lord Sainsbury will tell Daresbury Laboratory, near Warrington, whether the pioneering fourth-generation light source (4GLS) project will be funded.

Three years ago, the laboratory was handed £11.5m to research how to develop the light source, which would be a trillion times brighter than a household light bulb.

The technology, likely to be available in about 20 years, would enable scientists to study molecules which currently move too fast for the highest-powered light sources.

Now the lab is waiting to hear whether the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is ready to pay to move from a prototype machine to a fully-fledged research facility.

Earlier this month, three MPs, Mike Hall (Weaver Hall), Derek Twigg (Halton) and Helen Southworth (Warrington South), met Lord Sainsbury to urge him to fund the project.

Mr Hall said: "We are looking forward to a decision stating that the money will be made available and that the project will take place at Daresbury Laboratory.

"We hope the decision recognises the world-leading facilities and research at Daresbury, which is valuable in terms of not only pure science, but intellectual property and patents."

Hopes are high because Lord Sainsbury has described the potential of 4GLS, which combines particle accelerators with electron lasers, as "unique in the world".

Scientists describe 4GLS as "like a movie instead of pictures", because it will allow them to watch chemistry at the speed that it happens, at a sub-millionth of a second.

As well as helping to develop better drugs, 4GLS also has the potential to improve electronic devices, for example, removing the need for computer hard disks to store memory.

In 2003, the research funding secured Daresbury's future after the fury that greeted the decision to hand a different project to a rival laboratory in Oxfordshire.

Tony Blair was accused of betraying science in the north west after the Rutherford-Appleton lab became home to the £500m Diamond synchrotron project.