London, Ont., scientist assists in isotope breakthrough
Jonathan Sher, QMI Agency
First posted: Friday, February 20, 2015 07:16 AM EST | Updated: Friday, February 20, 2015 07:25 AM EST
LONDON, Ont. -- With a looming global shortage of medical isotopes needed to diagnose cancer and heart disease, a London scientist has helped craft a solution and garnered a national award.
Dr. Michael Kovacs of the Lawson Health Research Institute has teamed with scientists across Canada to come up with a novel way to make medical isotopes that has the added benefit of not needing weapons-grade nuclear material used for decades.
Chalk River Laboratories in eastern Ontario has long produced an isotope called radioisotope technetium-99m but it's slated to be shut down in 2018. The facility produces virtually all of the isotopes for North America and one-third of the global supply.
Medical isotopes can't be stockpiled because they can only be used for scans while they emit a radioactive signal -- something that happens for just a few hours to a few days depending on the type.
The continent has experienced a shortage once already, when maintenance at Chalk River sidelined production for longer than expected.
The isotopes are used to do 5,500 scans a day in Canada and 80,000 a day across the world.
So Kovacs and his colleagues have come up with a way for urban hospitals to produce isotopes using a device the size of a small dining room that many already have.
The device, called cyclotron, is used to make a different type of isotope used in positron emission tomography (PET) scans that are both more precise than conventional scans but also more costly.
The scientific team found a way to modify cyclotrons so they could make technetium-99m, too -- their work advanced enough that a clinical trial will begin later this year.
The cyclotrons don't start with weapons-grade plutonium, instead using another metal that makes an isotope useful for just six hours -- but that's enough time to be made for local use by a hospital.
"We have demonstrated that a reliable supply of cyclotron-produced Tc-99m for patients in the London region and across the country is now possible," Kovacs said.
He's part of a Canadian team of six scientists to receive the 2015 Brockhouse Canada Prize for Interdisciplinary Research in Science and Engineering. The team included experts in physics, chemistry and nuclear medicine.
jonathan.sher@sunmedia.ca
Twitter.com/JSHERatLFPress
Dr. Michael Kovacs operates mechanical arms that control a pair of pincers inside a hot cell, which houses target equipment to make isotopes, in the cyclotron imaging lab at the Lawson Health Research Institute at St. Joseph's Hospital in London, Ont., on Feb. 19, 2015. (CRAIG GLOVER/QMI Agency)
London, Ont., scientist assists in isotope breakthrough | Home | Toronto Sun
Jonathan Sher, QMI Agency
First posted: Friday, February 20, 2015 07:16 AM EST | Updated: Friday, February 20, 2015 07:25 AM EST
LONDON, Ont. -- With a looming global shortage of medical isotopes needed to diagnose cancer and heart disease, a London scientist has helped craft a solution and garnered a national award.
Dr. Michael Kovacs of the Lawson Health Research Institute has teamed with scientists across Canada to come up with a novel way to make medical isotopes that has the added benefit of not needing weapons-grade nuclear material used for decades.
Chalk River Laboratories in eastern Ontario has long produced an isotope called radioisotope technetium-99m but it's slated to be shut down in 2018. The facility produces virtually all of the isotopes for North America and one-third of the global supply.
Medical isotopes can't be stockpiled because they can only be used for scans while they emit a radioactive signal -- something that happens for just a few hours to a few days depending on the type.
The continent has experienced a shortage once already, when maintenance at Chalk River sidelined production for longer than expected.
The isotopes are used to do 5,500 scans a day in Canada and 80,000 a day across the world.
So Kovacs and his colleagues have come up with a way for urban hospitals to produce isotopes using a device the size of a small dining room that many already have.
The device, called cyclotron, is used to make a different type of isotope used in positron emission tomography (PET) scans that are both more precise than conventional scans but also more costly.
The scientific team found a way to modify cyclotrons so they could make technetium-99m, too -- their work advanced enough that a clinical trial will begin later this year.
The cyclotrons don't start with weapons-grade plutonium, instead using another metal that makes an isotope useful for just six hours -- but that's enough time to be made for local use by a hospital.
"We have demonstrated that a reliable supply of cyclotron-produced Tc-99m for patients in the London region and across the country is now possible," Kovacs said.
He's part of a Canadian team of six scientists to receive the 2015 Brockhouse Canada Prize for Interdisciplinary Research in Science and Engineering. The team included experts in physics, chemistry and nuclear medicine.
jonathan.sher@sunmedia.ca
Twitter.com/JSHERatLFPress
Dr. Michael Kovacs operates mechanical arms that control a pair of pincers inside a hot cell, which houses target equipment to make isotopes, in the cyclotron imaging lab at the Lawson Health Research Institute at St. Joseph's Hospital in London, Ont., on Feb. 19, 2015. (CRAIG GLOVER/QMI Agency)
London, Ont., scientist assists in isotope breakthrough | Home | Toronto Sun