CERN-MEDICIS: A unique facility for the production of nonconventional radionuclides for the medical research

CERN-MEDICIS (MEDical Isotopes Collected from ISolde) is a facility at CERN (Switzerland) dedicated to the production of non-conventional radionuclides for research and development in imaging, diagnostics and radiation therapy done at partner institutes. It exploits, in a controlled radiation area suited for the handling of unsealed radioactive sources, a target irradiation station positioned between the High Resolution Separator (HRS) ISOLDE target station and its beam dump, a target remote handling system and a dedicated isotope separator beam line. It irradiates targets with the 1.4 GeV Proton Synchroton Booster (PSB), and also receives activated target materials from external institutes, notably during CERN’s Long Shut-Downs. The irradiated target is heated to high temperatures (up to 2300°C) to allow for the release of the isotopes of interest out of the target which are subsequently ionized. The ions are accelerated and the beam is steered through an offline mass separator. The radionuclide batches are, this way, extracted through mass separation and implanted into a thin metallic collection foil up to an energy of 60 keV. After collection, the isotope source is prepared to be dispatched to biomedical research centers. Since its commissioning in December 2017, the CERN-MEDICIS facility has provided non-conventional medical radionuclides such as Tb-149, Tb-152, Tb-155, Tm-165, Er-169 and Yb-175 with high specific activity, some for the first time, to research institutes and hospitals, being part of the MEDICIS collaboration, for R&D in imaging or treatment.