Treating Cancer with Targeted Alpha Therapy - by Dr. Julian Rosenman
Channel: gordonmcdowell
Date: 27/04/2015

Actinium-225 & Bismuth-213 are radioactive medical isotopes which may revolutionize the fight against metastatic cancer cells.

Dr. Julian Rosenman (oncologist and computer scientist) reviews historic & modern approaches to fighting cancer with radiation, and looks to future opportunities opened up by the thorium fuel cycle.

Today, Technetium-99m is used to perform nuclear medical diagnostic procedures. 20 million procedures/year. There is a looming shortage of this material. Precursors to Technetium-99m are created in nuclear reactors but trapped inside the solid fuel rods and can not be retrieved. Because LFTR uses a liquid fuel state, such precursors can be easily retrieved during normal electricity generating operation... life saving medical isotopes become a free byproduct of electricity generation.

Unique to the thorium fuel cycle decay chain is Actinium-225 and Bismuth-213, which can be attached to antibodies and deliver a deadly neutron directly to metastatic cancer cells. Only the thorium fuel cycle offers the full range of desired medical isotopes. 

Rosenman delivered this talk at the 5th Small Modular Reactor Conference, in North Carolina, 2015.