{"id":1325,"date":"2015-09-30T21:20:28","date_gmt":"2015-10-01T05:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcpda\/?p=1325"},"modified":"2015-09-30T21:20:57","modified_gmt":"2015-10-01T05:20:57","slug":"featured-postdoc-dr-jesse-tanguay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcpda\/2015\/09\/featured-postdoc-dr-jesse-tanguay\/","title":{"rendered":"Featured Postdoc: Dr. Jesse Tanguay"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><strong>Postdoc Talk Event: 6 October\u00a02015 (7 PM), at the Railway Club<br \/>\n(all welcome, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/events\/476016292580473\/\">more details<\/a>)<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Postdoc Talk Title:<br \/>\n<\/em><\/strong>Avoiding the medical isotope crisis: Canada\u2019s alternative production strategy<\/p>\n<p><strong>Summary:<\/strong><br \/>\nCoronary 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 (<sup>99m<\/sup>Tc) is the most commonly used radio-isotope for SPECT procedures.<\/p>\n<p><sup>99m<\/sup>Tc 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 <sup>99m<\/sup>Tc demand, underwent temporary maintenance shut-downs which resulted in a worldwide <sup>99m<\/sup>Tc shortage. Discontinuation of the reactor in Canada in 2018 is expected to result in another <sup>99m<\/sup>Tc supply crisis. If this crisis is not averted, the resulting shortages of <sup>99m<\/sup>Tc will result in delays or cancellations of cardiac SPECT procedures throughout all of Canada, and potentially worldwide.<\/p>\n<p>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 <sup>99m<\/sup>Tc supply chain. The proposed solution would use commercially available medical cyclotrons to produce <sup>99m<\/sup>Tc for regional distribution. This approach would eliminate the need for nuclear reactors for production of <sup>99m<\/sup>Tc. In this Postdoc Talks, Dr. Tanguay will discuss the current status of cyclotron production of <sup>99m<\/sup>Tc, and his role in developing alternative strategies for diagnosing coronary artery disease.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Biography:<br \/>\n<\/strong>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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Postdoc Talk Event: 6 October\u00a02015 (7 PM), at the Railway Club (all welcome, more details) Postdoc Talk Title: Avoiding the medical isotope crisis: Canada\u2019s 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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31277,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[783731],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-postdocs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcpda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcpda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcpda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcpda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31277"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcpda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1325"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcpda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1328,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcpda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1325\/revisions\/1328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcpda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcpda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcpda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}