McMaster’s made-in-Canada solution for isotope crisis
The following was published in the National Post on August 21, 2009.
Federal officials have called an emergency meeting today to discuss the isotope crisis.
And a crisis it most certainly is. The National Research Universal (NRU) reactor at Chalk River has been shut down until March, and another major supplier of isotopes — this one in Holland — is also out of commission until next spring. Within a few months cancer patients in need of isotope treatment will simply not be able to get it.
However, there's a solution, right here in Canada.
The McMaster Nuclear Reactor currently supplies half the Canadian production of Iodine-125 (Chalk River produced the other half ). I-125 is used in treating prostate cancer. About 100 isotopes each day — or as our technicians like to say, enough for 100 dads a day — are made at the Hamilton, Ont., facility and shipped to medical facilities around the world.
This isn't something new. The McMaster reactor has been in the isotope business for 50 years, ever since Harry Thode, an enterprising Canadian chemistry professor who had conducted fission experiments for the National Research Council during the Second World War, lobbied to build a nuclear reactor at McMaster University. Thode saw the emerging technology of radio-isotope medicine, and he wanted Canada to get on the bandwagon.
Around the same time, a Lethbridge-born physicist named Bertram Brockhouse was conducting experiments at Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. in neutron scattering. He and Thode eventually met up at McMaster (Brockhouse would go on to win the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1994), and their work began attracting promising young scientists.
Canadian know-how in nuclear science and isotope production soared beyond expectations, positioning Mc-Master and Canada as world leaders. Scientists relocated here due to the wealth of opportunity and expertise.
When the current isotope crisis hit, McMaster's reactor automatically ramped up production of I-125 by 20%. We offered to retrofit the facility to handle the production of Molybdenum-99 (or moly-99, as it is more popularly known), which would enable our reactor to produce four times the entire moly-99 needed for Canada.
It's not the first time McMaster has stepped up to the plate. In the 1970s, production of moly-99 was moved to the McMaster reactor while the NRU reactor at Chalk River underwent a vessel replacement.
Granted, Canada is not solely responsible for dealing with the global isotope situation, but the world has come to rely on us as leaders in the field. We have spent decades cultivating this reputation and it has paid dividends in both spin-off opportunities and our ability to attract scientists from around the globe. We would do well to remember that scientists are an itinerant group, and for their own intellectual survival they will relocate to where innovation is most welcome and alive.
Last month, the U. S. Senate gave the green light for the United States to begin domestic production of medical isotopes in response to the global supply shortage. It's the first time the U.S. has proposed getting into the moly-99 business. Up till now it purchased its supply from Canada.
McMaster is a willing, able and entirely viable Canadian solution. Ramping up the McMaster Nuclear Reactor to produce moly-99 would utilize a facility with proven technology. It would require just a modest investment and relatively little start-up time. It would reassert Canada's position as a leader in nuclear research and nuclear medicine. More importantly, it would save lives and bring peace of mind to countless cancer and heart patients in Canada and around the world.
Mo Elbestawi is vice-president of research and international affairs for McMaster University.
