It appears the federal government has set aside $4 million to help cover the cost of an isotope-producing cyclotron for Thunder Bay Regional Research Institute.
The money will be made available if Tuesday’s federal budget is approved, said Institute chief executive officer Michael Power, caught by surprise by the announcement made by Minister of State for Science and Technology Gary Goodyear.
Power said the machine, which will be housed in its own facility at one of three locations – owned by and adjacent to the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre – will allow for much earlier detection of cancer cells than is presently possible.
That in turn should let radiologists and nuclear medicine doctors save lives, he said.
“They’ll be able to better diagnose disease. You can put a million cancer cells on the tip of a ballpoint pen. These isotopes excite cells. In fact cancer cells will digest the isotope and you’ll be able to see cancer at its earliest stage,” Power said.
“And you’ll be able to see it as it moves through the body as opposed to waiting for it to be isolated in a tumor.”
It will also give physicians a better idea of how treatment is progressing, he said.
“What you don’t want as a cancer patient is to go through six cycles of very toxic chemotherapy and as the result of a CT scan, (see) that it hasn’t had any impact,” Power said. “You want to be in a situation where in real time you can see if the tumor is responding to the chemotherapy.”
Power called it the front-end of a health-care revolution.
Presently isotopes, which have very short half-lives, sometimes as little as 90 minutes, are shipped to Thunder Bay from southern Ontario, usually Hamilton or Toronto.
It’s not uncommon for them to die en route.
The new generation of isotopes, which TBRRI researchers hope to develop and perfect, will surpass the current standard, at the same time ensuring usable isotopes are readily available for use at the regional hospital and other institutions in Northern Ontario.
“We’ll clearly be selling some of what we produce into communities like Sudbury, Timmins, North Bay and Sault Ste. Marie,” Power said. “But some of the isotopes will be so sub-specialized that patients will have to come to Thunder Bay to be treated.”
Power said the cyclotron and the radial pharmacy to house it won’t come cheaply.
The lab will cost about $10 million to build, with the cyclotron itself making up about $3.2 million of the cost. It's expected to be part of a larger 80,000 to 100,000 square foot research facility planned for the hospital grounds in the next three years.
The City of Thunder Bay has committed $1.5 million, with another $4 million coming from the province. TBRRI is kicking in the other $500,000.
Power said he expects it will take at least two years before the project is up and running.
MP Greg Rickford (Cons., Kenora), said the investment is part of his government's commitment to the region's growing knowledge-based economy, a plan that will benefit all of Northwestern Ontario.
"I'm very thrilled," he said, though expressed uncertainty as to whether or not the federal portion of the funding will see the light of day with talk swirling that opposition parties will vote down the budget when it goes for approval in the House of Commons, automatically triggering a federal election.
