Advancing global health through innovation

Canada's role in the supply of radioisotopes for healthcare applications is unparalleled anywhere else in the world. The NRU reactor, owned and operated by AECL, is the world's major manufacturer of reactor based isotopes. Our cyclotron facilities at the University of British Columbia, TRIUMF facilities, produce unique isotopes for medical research and treatment. CANDU power reactors operated by Hydro Quebec, Bruce Power and Ontario Power Generation are a key source of cobalt-60 production for use in the sterilization of single use medical products. Most of the innovation today is in medical applications of radioisotope technology. Every day, some 34,000 medical procedures take place using medical isotopes supplied by MDS Nordion. Sustaining this daily supply stream of medical isotopes around the world requires a complex combination of production, processing, and timely delivery of high quality isotopes. The NRU reactor, which has played a key role in supplying medical isotopes to date, has been in operation for over 40 years. Replacing this aging reactor has been a priority for MDS Nordion in order to assure the global nuclear medicine community that Canada can continue to be a dependable supplier of medical isotopes. MDS Nordion commissioned AECL to construct two MAPLE reactors dedicated to the production of medical isotopes. The MDS Nordion Medical Isotope Reactor (MMIR) project started in September 1996. This paper provides an update on the MAPLE reactors that AECL has built at its CRL site and will operate for MDS Nordion. (author)