THUNDER BAY — The largest cyclotron in Ontario is being used for research, but still can't provide the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre with radioactive isotopes for diagnostic imaging procedures on patients.
The machine was installed in a specially-built bunker near the hospital at 1040 Oliver Road six years ago at a total cost of almost $10 million.
The City of Thunder Bay contributed $1.5 million.
Although the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission licensed the cyclotron in 2016, it has yet to receive a sign-off from Health Canada.
In late 2019, hospital officials said they hoped to meet the federal government's requirements by the spring of 2020.
Producing isotopes for patient applications will save money, as it will only cost 25 per cent of what it currently costs to bring them in from a facility in southern Ontario.
The TBRHSC also hopes it will be able to produce isotopes for other Canadian hospitals, if only in a backup capacity.
Peter Myllymaa, the chief operating officer of the hospital's Thunder Bay Regional Health Research Institute, says the COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to the prolongation of the approval process.
"We were fairly close last March or April" to completing the improvements that Health Canada had requested, Myllymaa said. "As a result of the pandemic, a lot of people were working from home, there were a lot of supply chain disruptions, and contractors were unable to come up here because of travel restrictions."
Myllymaa said one of the regulator's main concerns was a lack of segregation between production and quality control, an issue that has been addressed with the hiring of a Manager of Quality, who works separately from the production team.
After Health Canada also requested improved documentation of policies and procedures, the hospital worked with an already-approved cyclotron in southern Ontario to adopt its systems.
Federal guidelines for cyclotron operations are extremely precise.
As an example, Myllymaa said "We have a piece of equipment whereby the operator puts their hands into a pair of large rubber gloves that protect them from radiation. We were required to purchase a 'glove tester' to ensure the gloves don't develop holes or leaks."
He said further complications in the approvals process arose from the departure late last year of the director of cyclotron operations who relocated to southern Ontario to be with family.
The position is expected to be filled in the next few weeks, paving the way for work on Health Canada's remaining requirements.
Myllymaa said a federal official has given assurances the department will do its best to expedite its review and complete the licensing process.
In the interim, he said, the seven or eight staff at the facility will continue to do important research.
The cyclotron can produce new radiotracers, biomakers and unique isotopes for Lakehead University faculty and for Thunder Bay Regional Research Institute scientists.
Preliminary work shows potential use for the mining industry
One project that's well underway involves using a byproduct of medical isotope production to replace the mining industry's traditional fire assay process.
Michael Campbell, a faculty member in the LU chemistry department who works with the research institute, is leading this research.
He and his team have shown that non-radioactive metals such as gold placed inside the cyclotron vault can be made radioactive for a short term, thereby determining the types and quantity of each metal.
"The amount of radioactive decay we were getting was proportional to how much there was, so we could tell what elements were present as well as how much was in a given sample," Campbell said.
There's more work to be done, but he already sees potential benefits.
"Right now, the way you would take a sample from a mine to check its purity, you would do a fire assay where you blend it with lead and do various tests to determine what elements are present. Essentially we can take the same sample, put it in our vault, activate it and do the analysis...The nice advantage of what we're doing is that it's non-destructive."
Campbell explained that, after a few days of radioactive decay, the sample is no longer hazardous and can be returned to the owner.
Another key advantage of using the cyclotron is that multiple metals can be tested simultaneously.
"You don't have to say, I'm gonna look at gold, now I'm gonna look at silver, then I'm gonna look at platinum. You can look at all three of those in one assay."
For the mining industry, Campbell said, that means greater efficiency and less waste.
"Quite often, the fire assay produces some lead waste that has to be remediated...whereas we can analyze a sample within an hour or two of getting it, and having the result quite quickly."
One important question still to be answered as the research continues is what the minimum detection limits might be.
"We need to sort of see how low we can go...to see if it can be used for, say, ore samples as well, as opposed to the finished product coming out of the mine for analysis," Campbell said.
He noted that since the project utilizes something that the cyclotron produces as a waste product, there have been virtually zero incremental costs for the operation.
Campbell did have to make some trips to the plumbing section of a local big box store, as he sought a way to make it safe for technicians to place the mineral samples inside the cyclotron vault, and retrieve them, without exposure to radiation.
"I had to build a system. I bought all sorts of bits to connect together and build something. If you ever want to confuse someone in a hardware store, tell them you're trying to build a target transfer system for making radioactive gold," he recalled with a chuckle.
Campbell's not aware of a cyclotron being used anywhere else in the world for this purpose.
He's in the process of reaching out to different companies for feedback on the preliminary results of the study.
Campbell and his associates also presented a research paper about their work at a conference in Ottawa last year.
Among other projects on the drawing board for the cyclotron, Myllymaa said the hospital's research arm has also made a pitch to FedNor and the NOHFC – government funding agencies – for support for a new project involving the production of special isotopes which could be marketed globally because they have a longer shelf life.
He said this would require additional staff, as well as collaboration with industry partners capable of handling logistics for distribution.
Note: Due to a typographical error, an earlier version of this story was revised to clarify that metals placed in the cyclotron can be made radioactive for a short period.
