Optimization of Medical Accelerators consortium welcomes TRIUMF as newest adjunct partner

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The Optimization of Medical Accelerators (OMA) consortium is pleased to announce its newest adjunct partner: TRIUMF, Canada’s particle accelerator centre. 

 

Established in 1968 in Vancouver, TRIUMF is Canada’s particle accelerator centre. Powered by a diverse community of nearly 600 researchers, engineers, staff, and students, the lab is pushing frontiers in isotope science and innovation, as well as technologies that address fundamental and applied problems in particle and nuclear physics, materials science, and life sciences. TRIUMF is home to a state-of-the-art particle accelerator complex — featuring the world’s largest cyclotron and the most powerful superconducting electron linear accelerator — that drives world-leading science across the lab’s multidisciplinary research portfolio.

TRIUMF’s Life Sciences Division currently investigates a variety of topics of relevance to OMA, including: 

  • Isotope production R&D for targeted alpha therapy (TAT) with Ac-225
  • Additive manufacturing for beam shaping and organ-shaped phantoms for proton therapy
  • Organic and inorganic fibers for proton therapy dosimetry
  • Dose verification in proton therapy using prompt gamma measurement
  • The use of gold nanoparticles as a radiosensitizing agent for proton therapy

TRIUMF is also currently assessing first steps towards the development of a new, on-site photon FLASH facility. FLASH, a new cancer treatment modality that takes one second or less instead of several minutes over many days, holds great potential to effectively treat cancer while minimizing side effects to the cancer patient.

"TRIUMF perfectly complements the expertise in OMA,” said OMA Coordinator and head of the QUASAR Group, Professor Carsten Welsch. “This new partnership offers our Fellows exciting opportunities for collaborative research and secondments and allows TRIUMF to join and contribute to our numerous projects and events."

“Joining OMA is a great opportunity for TRIUMF,” said Dr. Cornelia Hoehr, Deputy Associate Lab Director for Life Sciences at TRIUMF. “The network will enable us to collaborate more easily with our European colleagues. I am very much looking forward to closer exchanges of accelerator applications, knowledge, and expertise across the network, with the ultimate goal of improving cancer care.”

You can read more about TRIUMF here.