Postdoc Talk Event: 6 October 2015 (7 PM), at the Railway Club
(all welcome, more details)

Postdoc Talk Title:
Avoiding the medical isotope crisis: Canada’s alternative production strategy

Summary:
Coronary artery disease remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Canada. Critical to the diagnosis of coronary artery disease is a medical-imaging technique called single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), which is used to visualize regions of the heart muscle with reduced blood flow. SPECT procedures require injection of a radioactive isotope. After injection, the radio-isotope travels to the heart muscle where it emits photons that can be detected using radiation detectors that are located outside of the body. Technetium-99m (^99mTc) is the most commonly used radio-isotope for SPECT procedures.

^99mTc is currently obtained from five nuclear reactors spread across the globe. In 2009-2010, reactors in Canada and the Netherlands, which together supply approximately 70% of the global ^99mTc demand, underwent temporary maintenance shut-downs which resulted in a worldwide ^99mTc shortage. Discontinuation of the reactor in Canada in 2018 is expected to result in another ^99mTc supply crisis. If this crisis is not averted, the resulting shortages of ^99mTc will result in delays or cancellations of cardiac SPECT procedures throughout all of Canada, and potentially worldwide.

Dr. Tanguay is working with a British-Columbia-led team of Canadian researchers to develop and implement an alternative production strategy that has the potential to reduce dependence on such a centralized and increasingly unstable ^99mTc supply chain. The proposed solution would use commercially available medical cyclotrons to produce ^99mTc for regional distribution. This approach would eliminate the need for nuclear reactors for production of ^99mTc. In this Postdoc Talks, Dr. Tanguay will discuss the current status of cyclotron production of ^99mTc, and his role in developing alternative strategies for diagnosing coronary artery disease.

Biography:
Dr. Tanguay received is PhD from Western University in 2013. For his dissertation, Dr. Tanguay investigated the potential for new medical x-ray imaging technologies to improve the diagnosis of coronary artery disease. Dr. Tanguay is currently a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Radiology at the University of British Columbia where he is working with a team of Canadian scientists to develop and implement an alternative method to produce technetium-99m, which is the most commonly used medical radioisotope.

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