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BWH last weekend became home to the Longwood Medical Area’s first cyclotron, a particle accelerator that produces isotopes used in the diagnosis and treatment of cancers in a way that minimizes damage to healthy tissues.
“The cyclotron will be a very important component of Radiology’s Molecular Imaging Program,” said Steven Seltzer, MD, chair of Radiology. “It can generate a wide variety of isotopes used for advanced PET scanning.”
The 50-ton cyclotron arrived in several pieces on Saturday and took what Seltzer called “a mind-bendingly complex” path to its new home in the Thorn Medical Research Building. It was brought in on flat bed trucks, hoisted by crane over the Coolidge Building, then tunneled under a huge air-handling unit to the Cyclotron/PET Chemistry facility in Thorn.
“My thanks and congratulations to Marcelo DiCarli, Victor Gerbaudo, Tim Degrado, Peter Holton, Susan Malaab and many others within Radiology and the BWH leadership team who made this exciting and landmark project possible,” Seltzer said.
The cyclotron should be up and running by early 2008.