With the help of modern technologies and ideas from Physics, Medicine field has achieved great advances since the last century from the discovery of x-rays and radioactivity to the advent of radiation-based medical treatment and diagnosis. Medical community was already using Radioisotopes for radiation therapy, imaging and diagnosis. However, most isotopes don't go well with most appropriate chemical and physical properties so different types of radiations suit better. MEDICIS is a help to looking to isotopes with appropriate properties which add precision for both imaging and treatment.
MEDICIS can provide a very wide range of isotopes which can fulfil the requirements for it to be fruitful for imaging or diagnosis work. Great efforts have been made in the use of these isotopes specifically in Switzerland and across the European countries for treatment and diagnosis. MEDICIS will hopefully allow researchers to test and devise untested isotopes to developing walks to tackle cancer. CERN-MEDICIS is an initiative led by CERN combining with its partner institutions and private foundations.
How does it work?
Depending on the numbers of neutrons it has in its nucleus a chemical element can exist in no.s of isotopes. Of these isotopes naturally radioactives are known as radioisotopes. While naturally unavailable ones can be produced with the help of particle accelerator. For the production of these radioisotopes for medical research MEDICIS uses proton beams from the ISOLDE- the isotope mass separator online facility at CERN, in the first batch of which was produced Terbium, a promising radioisotope for diagnosing prostate cancer. For the requirements of large variety of atomic fragments, at ISOLDE, proton beams of high intensity from CERN’s Proton Synchrotron Booster is directed to the skillfully developed thick targets. Devices of different variety are used in the process of ionisation, extraction and Nuclei separation according to the mass, to form a low energy beam to deliver it to different experimental stations.Researchers dissolve the isotope and combine with molecules such as protein or sugar, targeting the tumor precisely. This helps make the isotope injectable and molecule to adhere to tumor that needs imaging or detection
MEDICIS to advance the radioisotopes to suitable stage for medical research
In its last fifty years ISOLDE has produced around 1300 isotopes from 73 chemicals in association with CERN for research purposes in many fields including Life Sciences, Astrophysics and Nuclear Research. The new MEDICIS facility is allowing to provide radioisotopes meeting the requirements of the medical research community in addition to the Isotopes that were already being produced by ISOLDE.
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