The CERN & Society Foundation is delighted to announce that the ProTechno Foundation will support the CERN-MEDICIS (Medical Isotopes Collected from ISOLDE) Project for the second year running. We are thankful for the Foundation’s continued support making great strides in the use of radioisotopes for diagnosis and treatment with a view to developing new approaches to fight cancer.

Initiated in 2010 by CERN, MEDICIS is driven by CERN’s Isotope Mass Separator Online (ISOLDE) facility. ISOLDE has been running for 50 years, and 1300 different isotopes from 73 chemicals have already been produced at CERN for research in many areas, including fundamental nuclear research.

With the help of the funding received from the ProTechno Foundation in 2019, CERN-Medicis was able to plan and progress on the MED018 (No-carrier-added 169Er production at CERN-Medicis from target irradiated at ILL) and MED019 (No-carrier -added 175Yb production at CERN-Medicis from external ILL target) carried out in collaboration with the Paul Scherrer Institute (Villigen, CH), the Institut Laue Langevin (Grenoble, FR) and the Institut de radiophysique du CHUV (Lausanne, CH).

In particular, the team succeeded in making a first proof of concept in preclinical imaging with a radiopharmaceutical compound, 175Yb-PSMA-617, intended for the diagnosis of prostate cancer lesions, for the first time with the new radiolanthanide Ytterbium- 175.

The production of new isotopes is ongoing, and the valuable support from the ProTechno Foundation will undoubtedly contribute towards CERN-Medicis playing an important role in the fight against cancer.

To learn more about CERN & Society activities and how you can be involved, visit the dedicated webpage.