Biggest cyclotron starts ops in Kolkata

  • | Thursday | 20th September, 2018

NEW DELHI: The country’s biggest cyclotron facility that will produce radioisotopes vital for diagnosis and treatment of cancer became operational last week.The Cyclone-30 machine situated at Kolkata-based Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre, which comes under the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), will start regular production by mid-2019 after supporting nuclear systems and regulatory clearances are commissioned.The machine started working for the first time when a 30 MeV beam reached the Faraday Cup (a metal cup designed to catch charged particles in vacuum) last week.The Kolkata facility will provide for affordable radio isotopes and related radiopharmaceuticals for the entire country, especially for eastern states like West Bengal, and also have export potential for germanium-68/gallium-68 generator for in-situ production of gallium-68 and palladium-103 isotopes, which are used for breast cancer diagnosis and prostate cancer treatment , respectively.Currently, many radioisotopes are imported while some are produced in nuclear research reactors at Mumbaibased Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC).

NEW DELHI: The country’s biggest cyclotron facility that will produce radioisotopes vital for diagnosis and treatment of cancer became operational last week.The Cyclone-30 machine situated at Kolkata-based Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre, which comes under the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), will start regular production by mid-2019 after supporting nuclear systems and regulatory clearances are commissioned.The machine started working for the first time when a 30 MeV beam reached the Faraday Cup (a metal cup designed to catch charged particles in vacuum) last week.The Kolkata facility will provide for affordable radio isotopes and related radiopharmaceuticals for the entire country, especially for eastern states like West Bengal, and also have export potential for germanium-68/gallium-68 generator for in-situ production of gallium-68 and palladium-103 isotopes, which are used for breast cancer diagnosis and prostate cancer treatment , respectively.Currently, many radioisotopes are imported while some are produced in nuclear research reactors at Mumbaibased Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC).

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