News Release | For Immediate Release | December 03, 2009
(Vancouver, BC) -- TRIUMF, Canada's national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics, is pleased to comment on the report released today from the Expert Review Panel on Medical Isotope Production (the Panel) commissioned by Natural Resources Canada.
"We are happy to see the Panel acknowledge and endorse accelerators - and more specifically cyclotrons - as a central part of the long-term answer to a stable supply of medical isotopes in Canada. As the only place in Canada able to design, develop, and engineer accelerators especially for the production of medical isotopes, TRIUMF is committed to contributing to these solutions," said Dr Nigel S. Lockyer, director of TRIUMF.
"TRIUMF is already working with the federal government and the BC provincial government on a two-year project to develop and evaluate cyclotron-based solutions to the medical-isotope supply shortage," said Dr. Thomas J. Ruth, senior research scientist at TRIUMF and co-Principle Investigator of a new research program. Together with the BC Cancer Agency and other partners across Canada (Cross Cancer Institute, Lawson Health Research Institute, University of British Columbia, and Université de Sherbrooke), TRIUMF was recently awarded $1.3 million to investigate cyclotron technology for producing Technetium-99m and Technetium-94m as alternatives to reactor-produced Technetium-99m.
Lockyer added, "We are also most encouraged to note the recommendations for further R&D investment in the emerging technology field of accelerators and isotope production."
If you would like to discuss TRIUMF's considered opinion of today's Panel's Report and to learn more about TRIUMF's accelerator and cyclotron initiatives currently underway please contact:
Timothy I. Meyer, Ph.D.
Head, Strategic Planning & Communications TRIUMF
4004 Wesbrook Mall
Vancouver, BC V6T 2A3 CANADA
Tel: 604-222-7674
Fax: 604-222-3791
Cell: 650-464-8955
E-mail: tmeyer at triumf.ca
WWW: http://www.triumf.ca