McMaster part of national laboratory to win Synergy Award

TRIUMF, Canada's national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics research, and MDS Nordion, the world's leading supplier of medical isotopes, recently won a 2004 Synergy Award for Innovation from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

TRIUMF is operated as a joint venture by six member universities and six associate member universities, including McMaster. As an associate member, McMaster has helped establish TRIUMF as a world class scientific institution. Each year, McMaster faculty and students conduct leading-edge research at TRIUMF.

As an example of Canadian university-industry collaboration, the TRIUMF-MDS Nordion partnership has been recognized for its commercial and scientific success in translating research into practical medical applications.

As part of the award, TRIUMF received a $25,000 research grant from NSERC, and MDS Nordion was presented with the prestigious Synergy sculpture.

In 1967, the University of Victoria, the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University combined their resources with funding from the federal government to create TRIUMF, a national laboratory for subatomic physics research. Since then, the University of Alberta, the University of Toronto and Carleton University have become full members, while six associate member universities have joined the consortium.

In 1978, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) approached TRIUMF about using its cyclotron to produce isotopes for medical applications. MDS Nordion evolved from that partnership to become the world's leading supplier of medical isotopes.

Today, up to 40,000 patient doses are shipped weekly from the MDS Nordion/TRIUMF site to customers throughout the world, for applications such as treating thyroid and prostate cancers, and diagnosing heart disease and neurological disorders.