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TAT-10: US DOE Tri-Lab Research Effort to Provide Accelerator produced Ac225 for radiotherapy: 2017 Update

Kanazawa, Japan (UroToday.com) The US DOE’s isotope program at three of its national labs (LANL, Oak Ridge, and BNL) is an on-going program to produce Ac225 isotopes for research and patient treatment. The BNL Brookhaven Linear Isotope Producer (BLIP) uses excess pulses diverted from the primary proton linac serving the BNL accelerator complex.

BLIP directs up to 174 microAmps of 66-202 protons onto targets for isotope production, including Ac225. Similarly, LANL’s Isotope Production Linac (IPL) receives 100 Mev protons from the LANSCE accelerator. IPL can generate up 5-7 kW of beam power on each target for isotope production. Oak Ridge is a reactor laboratory with over 20 years experience in separating Ac225 from fissile U223 via Th209.

One of the challenges for accelerator-produced Ac225 is separation of co-produced Ac227 although biodistribution and toxicity data with 0.3% Ac227 contamination show negligible impact.

The over-arching DOE goal is to produce sufficient material to support clinical trials in 1-2 years and an established drug in about 5 years

Presented By: Kevin John from Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM

Written By: William Carithers, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

at the 10th International Symposium on Targeted Alpha Therapy (TAT-10)  May 31 - June 1, 2017 - Kanazawa, Japan.