CFI Awards $6.8 M for Synchrotron Beamline at U of S to Open New Windows into Human Body

Posted March 08, 2004


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -March 8, 2004, 9:30 a.m. 2004-03-11-OTHER

CFI Awards $6.8 M for Synchrotron Beamline to Open New Windows into Human
Body

SASKATOON. A powerful new beamline at the Canadian Light Source (CLS) will
yield incredibly detailed images of the body and new tools for cancer
treatment research thanks to $6.8 million in funding announced today by the
Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI).

The $17-million BioMedical Imaging and Therapy (BMIT) beamline and
associated research facility will be unique in North America and one of only
three in the world. It's expected to take about two and a half years to
build and commission. The CLS itself will open for business in 2004.

"BMIT is a major step in establishing the U of S as Canada's premiere centre
for advanced research and development in medical imaging," says U of S
Vice-President Research Steven Franklin. "This initiative offers
opportunities to researchers and their graduate students that are available
nowhere else in the country."

"This project illustrates the capabilities of this synchrotron," says CLS
Executive-Director Bill Thomlinson. "With BMIT, we are attaching world-class
research tools to the CLS, tools that will be directly important to the
lives of everyone."

"The Government of Canada created the CFI for days like today. These
projects illustrate how Canadians from across our country work together to
push the leading edge of research and development," said Ralph Goodale,
federal Minister of Finance and MP for Wascana. "It is equally important to
recognize that leading-edge research and development happens right here in
Saskatchewan."

CFI's Innovation Fund will provide 40 per cent of capital project costs,
with the balance made up by other funding partners. More than $2.7 million
has been committed from outside agencies. These include: the Alberta Cancer
Board, Western College of Veterinary Medicine (WCVM), Royal University
Hospital Foundation, Hospitals of Regina Foundation, Regina Qu'Appelle
Health Region, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan
Cancer Agency, Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation, Canadian Cancer
Society-Saskatchewan Division, and the Breast Cancer Society of Canada.

The project enjoys support from more than 60 researchers across the country,
collectively known as the BMIT Beam Team.

"BMIT will be the only biomedical imaging beamline in the world located on a
university campus," says project leader Dean Chapman. "The synchrotron is
literally a few minutes' walk from the offices of people doing research in
human medicine, veterinary medicine and pharmaceuticals."

Chapman and Thomlinson, working with colleagues from several institutions in
the U.S. and Europe, developed a technique called diffraction enhanced
imaging (DEI) which delivers high-resolution images of organs, muscles and
ligaments - even the insides of bones. Mammograms taken with DEI require no
tissue compression, and the radiation dose is much smaller than with
conventional X-rays.

The majority of this research will be done on animal models and draw on
close collaborations between researchers in veterinary and human medicine.
WCVM scientist Gregg Adams expects to use BMIT to explore the causes of
infertility, work that is directly applicable to human health.

"My hope is that we can take a cow and image an egg within a follicle,
within an ovary, within an animal - a live animal," he says. "This is a very
powerful tool, able to look at effects over time without disrupting normal
physiological events."

BMIT also promises advances in cancer treatment research, says Gino Fallone,
oncology professor and director of medical physics for the University of
Alberta and the Cross Cancer Institute.

"For years the main goal of radiation therapy for cancer was to prescribe
radiation doses to eradicate or control the tumour, while at the same time
spare the surrounding healthy tissues," he says. "The astonishing aspect of
the microbeam therapy provided by the CLS is that it spares healthy tissue
much better than any other radiation-delivery system. This aspect alone will
revolutionize the way we treat cancer with radiation."

Ian Cunningham, a scientist with the Robarts Research Institute in London,
Ont., plans to take part of his research program to the new beamline for
development of new X-ray diffraction medical imaging techniques that have
implications for vascular disease, bone diseases, and urology.

"A synchrotron offers us the ability to do experiments that cannot done
anywhere else," Cunningham said. "This is going to speed up research
tremendously."

The new beamline will actually increase the size of the CLS itself,
requiring an addition to the southeast corner of the building. This will
allow the "fan" of X-ray light to spread wide enough for advanced imaging
capabilities, allowing researchers to safely look at the effects of
therapeutic drugs in living patients. Already, synchrotron techniques are
leading to safer ways to evaluate and treat lung and heart disease.

The $173.5-million U of S-owned national facility is one of Canada's largest
science projects in a generation.

Synchrotron light - millions of times brighter than sunlight - is used to
view chemical reactions and the micro-structure of materials, paving the way
for new drugs, more powerful computer chips, better engine lubricants, more
effective medical imaging and a host of other applications for science and
industry.

At the U of S, there are more than 70 scientists who use a synchrotron in
their work - up from a handful when the synchrotron got the green light in
March of 1999. The project enjoys the endorsement of 27 universities across
the country. About 400 Canadian researchers use synchrotrons in their work.

CLS funding partners include the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the
Canadian government (including Western Economic Diversification, Natural
Resources Canada, the National Research Council, NSERC, and the Canadian
Institutes of Health Research), Saskatchewan Industry and Resources, Ontario
Innovation Trust, Alberta Innovation and Science, Alberta Heritage
Foundation for Medical Research, U of S, the City of Saskatoon, SaskPower,
and Boehringer Ingelheim, University of Western Ontario, and University of
Alberta. GlaxoSmithKline has also provided funding for a U of S chair in an
area of synchrotron science.

For more information on the CLS, visit: www.lightsource.ca/bioimaging

Note to editors: Photos, other images, and a backgrounder on the CLS are
available upon request.

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For more information, contact:

Dean Chapman
Professor
Dept. of Anatomy and Cell Biology
College of Medicine
University of Saskatchewan
(306) 966-4111
dean.chapman@usask.ca
www.usask.ca/anatomy/people/chapman.shtml

Michael Robin
U of S Research Communications
(306) 966-2427
michael.robin@usask.ca
www.usask.ca/research