On March 17-21, the TED Conference picked up its Californian roots and landed in Vancouver for a week of inspiring, thought-provoking, and creative talks. TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) has diversified to showcase “ideas worth spreading” in any discipline, from the arts to nuclear physics. As part of the conference, where attendees and speakers are encouraged to cross-fertilize and draw inspiration from unlikely places, a group of 25 delegates with widely-varying backgrounds were treated to an exclusive tour of the cyclotron vault and GMP labs followed by a meet-and-greet with some of our experts.
On their stop in the nuclear medicine GMP Labs, the TED visitors were gowned in full protective regalia and brought by Dr. Paul Schaffer, Nuclear Medicine Division Head, to the hot cells where radioactive isotopes (produced in one of the lab’s smaller cyclotrons) are combined with biotracers to create radiopharmaceuticals. These short-lived radiopharmaceuticals are primarily used to image patients using PET scanners at UBC Hospital. Typically, while the patient is rolling up their sleeve at the hospital, TRIUMF will create an isotope in one of its cyclotrons, create the radiopharmaceutical dose in the GMP lab, and send it off to UBC Hospital using an underground pneumatic tube. Within two minutes, the nurse receives the dose and injects it directly into the patient. Dr. Schaffer also shared how a TRIUMF-led collaboration is working on a Made-in-Canada solution to address the threat of a global medical isotope shortage through cyclotron-based production of technetium-99m.
The tour’s main attraction was TRIUMF’s main cyclotron, the world’s largest, which accelerates atoms to ¾ the speed of light and delivers them to various experiments on site. With the cyclotron turned off for maintenance, delegates had the rare privilege to descend into the vault for an up-close look, led by Dr. Ewart Blackmore, a longtime TRIUMF Engineering Division Head who was part of the early team designing the cyclotron over forty years ago.
After the tour, visitors shared their experiences, ideas, and questions with a handful of senior TRIUMF staff over lunch before returning to the conference. TRIUMF was pleased to provide one of the many eye-opening experiences which the week had in store for TED delegates.
-Prepared by Melissa Baluk, Communications Coordinator