Isotope production in Canada.

[gsun]

We have a cyclotron in Vancouver at the University of British Columbia called TRIUMF. It's buried below the concrete blocks. They have been researching the production of LU 177 and ACT 225. It started a few years ago when Dr.Paul Schafer (in the article) noticed ACT 225 being produced as an offshoot in other research he was doing. He started to see how much he could produce and found it was a very small amount. They have to take used uranium from nuclear reactors, speed it up to close to the speed of light and then smash it into many different isotopes. I toured the facility with Dr. Schafer and Dr. Kathryn Hayashi who is the head of TRIUMF. The tour was for a few of us lucky ones and it was about medical isotopes for cancer.

They are building a smaller cyclotron next to the big one in it's own building. It may be done by now. This one will be just for medical isotopes that can also include tracers for scans, etc. They have a tube like in the old department stores that vacuumed money to the office upstairs. This is so they can produce isotopes and send them directly to UBC hospital for use immediately.

Attached is an article that just came out. It is rather simple for people who know nothing about it. I'm sure most people on this forum know way more, but it is still informative.

news.ubc.ca/2023/05/04/nucl...

[gsun]

Seems I can only post one picture at a time.This one is when the cyclotron was built with the crew on top of it.

Cyclotron

[gsun in reply to gsun]

The area is highly magnetic. These are paperclips standing up

clips

[gsun in reply to gsun]

This is the new cyclotron building.

building

[gsun in reply to gsun]

This is the control room.

control room

[Woodstock82]

Here is a link to a short (five and a half minutes) video about TRIUMF and the "Rabbit Line" transportation system they use to get the meds to the hospital: youtu.be/eMTZvA8iFgI(Not working as expected?)

[j-o-h-n]

That looks like an Amazon fulfillment center..... BTW where's my package?

Good Luck, Good Health and Good Humor.

j-o-h-n Sunday 05/07/2023 9:08 PM DST