WASHINGTON, DC -- Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham announced today the commissioning of the Nation’s newest isotope production facility located at Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) in New Mexico.   When the $23 million state-of-the-art facility reaches full-scale operation later this spring, it will greatly enhance security of supply of short lived medical isotopes in the United States.

“The short lived isotopes produced by this facility and other accelerators in the DOE complex provide vital isotopes required to diagnose, treat and research serious illnesses such as heart disease and cancer,” Secretary Abraham said.  “The radioisotopes produced by the new beam spur at the Los Alamos accelerator center will help assure the uninterrupted supply of these isotopes.”

LANL Laboratory Director Pete Nanos, joined facility sponsor William D. Magwood, IV, chief of DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology, and Senator Jeff Bingaman in a ceremony today to dedicate the new facility. 

Speaking before 150 invited guests, Mr. Magwood applauded the Laboratory’s success in completing the first dedicated isotope facility in more than twenty years and completing the more than 50,000 hours of construction on the facility without a single lost workday.  

The facility, built over the last five years, houses a new beam line and equipment needed to direct part of the 100 million electron volt proton beam from the existing LANSCE accelerator to a new target station designed exclusively for the production of isotopes.   LANSCE delivered the first proton beam to the new facility at 11:34 p.m. on December 23, 2004. 

The new facility will allow the production of more than 30 different types of isotopes in significant quantities and provides the flexibility to insert and retrieve targets while the LANSCE accelerator continues to operate in support of vital science and national security missions.

Some of the key isotopes that will be produced by the facility include copper-67, arsenic-73, germanium-68 and strontium-82.  These isotopes are important to the treatment of cancer and other illnesses because the isotope can be targeted directly to the cancer with minimal side effects and their short half-life assures that the isotope does not remain in vital organs such as the liver.  Additionally, hospitals and research institutions across the nation use isotopes such as germanium-68, produced by this facility, every day to calibrate medical imagining equipment.

Additional information on the Department of Energy’s isotope program may be found on the nuclear energy web site at http://nuclear.gov.

Media Contact(s):
Hope Williams, 202/586-5806
Joe Davis, 202/586-4940

- DOE -