Department of Breast and Molecular Oncology

The world is facing a shortage of the key medical isotope Technetium-99m (Tc-99m). More  than 80% of the estimated 1.5 million nuclear medicine procedures performed annually in Canada use radiopharmaceuticals based on this isotope, which is currently produced using nuclear reactors.

Together with TRIUMF and other partners, the BC Cancer Agency (BCCA) has received a $1.3-million grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to develop an alternative source of medical isotopes. The grant is part of a $5.4-million research program called Alternative Radiopharmaceuticals for Medical Imaging. The project will be led by co-principal investigators Dr. François Bénard, Scientific Director of the Centre of Excellence for Functional Cancer Imaging at the BC Cancer Agency, and Dr. Thomas J. Ruth, Senior Research Scientist at TRIUMF and Senior Scientist at the BC Cancer Agency.  Dr. Bénard holds the BC Leadership Chair in Functional Cancer Imaging and is a professor of radiology at the University of British Columbia, as well as a principal investigator in the BCCA’s Molecular Oncology Department.

BCCA, TRIUMF, and collaborators in Edmonton, Sherbrooke, and London, Ontario will collaborate on the two-year research project. The aim is to develop methods to produce technetium using cyclotrons instead of nuclear reactors. Conventional medical cyclotron machines are already being used to produce radioisotopes for many diagnostic procedures, and a cyclotron is currently under construction at the BC Cancer Agency, an initiative made possible through funding provided by the British Columbia Ministry of Health Services and the BC Cancer Foundation. The research team expects to initiate clinical studies to validate new production methods within two years.

“Finding alternatives to reactor produced medical isotopes is vital to staying ahead of the supply curve and meeting the health needs of patients,” said Dr. Bénard. “Producing technetium radioisotopes from cyclotrons could be a safe, reliable and cost-effective alternative to using material produced in nuclear reactors.”

Dr. Nigel Lockyer, TRIUMF Director, added, “we’re thrilled to be working with the leading cancer agency in Canada and some of the best minds in Canada on this research program. We each bring something unique to the table.  Together, we will find solutions to this problem that will work for Canadians and even the world. ”

Dr. Sam Aparicio of the Molecular Oncology Department, in partnership with Dr. Marco Marra of the Genome Sciences Centre, has published the first complete genome sequence of a breast cancer. The article is featured on the front cover of this weeks issue of Nature, one of the world’s most prestigious science journals.

The study describes the use of next-generation DNA sequencing technology to identify all of the 32 gene mutations present in a metastatic breast cancer. The team then searched for the same mutations in the original breast tumour from nine years earlier; only five were present at high enough levels for them to have been present in every cell of the original tumour. Six other mutations were present in small subsets of the original tumour cells, confirming for the first time that there is considerable genetic heterogeneity even at the earliest stages of breast cancer. This finding highlights the need to target all breast tumour cells at an early stage of treatment, rather than treating the tumour as a single uniform mass.

Further details can be found in today’s press release from the BC Cancer Foundation. To date, the story has also been covered by the CBC, CTV, Global, Canada.com, Vancouver Sun, The Province, and MIT’s Technology Review.