EDMONTON – The University of Alberta has opened a new cyclotron facility at its south Edmonton campus.
The facility will make a reliable supply of medical isotopes for diagnostic imaging.
A shutdown of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.’s Chalk River research reactor in 2009 caused a worldwide shortage of the medical isotopes used to detect cancer and heart ailments.
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Ottawa has said isotope production at the Ontario facility will end in 2016.
Sandy McEwan, lead researcher for the Edmonton cyclotron, says the plan for the future is to establish a network of perhaps a dozen cyclotrons across the country supplying medical isotopes.
Ottawa contributed $10.9 million toward the Edmonton facility while the province provided another $5.4 million.
McEwan said the cyclotron is currently being commissioned but should be licensed and fully operational within a few months.
(CHED, The Canadian Press)
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