CERN-MEDICIS produces radionuclides which can be used to treat different kinds of oncological, cardiological and neurological diseases.  

Dr John Prior is Head of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging at Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV). He has been involved in the MEDICIS project since it began. 

Dr Prior explains, “The beauty of MEDICIS is we can get many kinds of radionuclides, meaning that it is both possible to do cancer therapy and diagnostics.” In other words, and put simply: “What you see, you can treat and what you treat, you can also see.” This is the so-called theranostics approach.

The benefit of this is being able to treat a range of cancers. It is important, however, to continue research and to develop novel radionuclides more, as well as to understand why some people do not respond to treatment and how to increase the number of people who do respond. Even having small quantities of new radionuclides to administer to one patient and to see the effect, would ultimately lead to being able to treat more patients and to become more efficient in treating different cancers. 

“Investing in MEDICIS means investing in our future, in the sense that you may create new radionuclides that may be able to cure more patients.” 

In terms of innovation, Dr Prior explains that while the ISOLDE experiment is already very well known, having targets to put in the beam so as not to disturb other parts of the experiment is innovative and a benefit for science and medicine. 

MEDICIS expands the tools we have to treat the hardest-to-reach cancers, offering new hope where few options remain. Supporting this work can help bring life-saving particle-physics–based therapies to patients who need them most. 

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