The new CERN-MEDICIS facility has produced radioisotopes for medical research for the first time. MEDICIS (Medical Isotopes Collected from ISOLDE) aims to provide a wide range of radioisotopes, some of which can be produced only at CERN1 thanks to the unique ISOLDE facility. These radioisotopes are destined primarily for hospitals and research centres in Switzerland and across Europe.

At ISOLDE, the high-intensity proton beam from CERN’s Proton Synchrotron Booster (PSB) is directed onto specially developed thick targets, yielding a large variety of atomic fragments. Different devices are used to ionise, extract and separate nuclei according to their mass, forming a low-energy beam that is delivered to various experimental stations. MEDICIS works by placing a second target behind ISOLDE’s. Once the isotopes have been produced at the MEDICIS target, an automated conveyor belt carries them to the MEDICIS facility, where the radioisotopes of interest are extracted through mass separation and implanted in a metallic foil. They are then delivered to research facilities including the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI), the Department of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imagining at the University Hospital of Vaud (CHUV) and the Geneva University Hospitals (HUG).

This release was first published on 12 December 2017 by CERN.

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Source: Science Business