NIIEFA - JINR: Сyclotron for flash therapy

On 20 February, at the D. V. Efremov Scientific and Research Institute of Electrophysical Apparatus (JSC NIIEFA, St. Petersburg), a workshop took place on the progress in R&D on the creation of the MSC-230 Superconducting Proton Cyclotron for the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research.

It should be reminded that in April 2022, JINR and NIIEFA, an enterprise of the Rosatom State Corporation, concluded an agreement on the development and production of an accelerator complex based on the MSC-230 Superconducting Cyclotron. The agreement implies drafting of technical documentation, production of components and systems of the accelerator, its assembling, debugging and a test launch at NIIEFA, further transportation to JINR, installation, and full-fledged launch in Dubna in two years.

The workshop was chaired by Director General of the Rosatom State Corporation Alexey Likhachev. The JINR delegation was represented at the event by Director of the Joint Institute Grigory Trubnikov, JINR Vice-Director Sergey Dmitriev, and Chief Engineer of the Institute Boris Gikal. On the part of NIIEFA, Director General of the company Sergey Herzog and representatives of the main divisions took part in it.

Grigory Trubnikov noted high qualification level of the NIIEFA team with critically important competences in the creation of accelerator equipment and a number of other fields. Sergey Herzog spoke about the progress in the creation of the MSC-230 Cyclotron and other promising developments of the enterprise for nuclear medicine. The parties discussed the issues of current cooperation and prospects for its further enhancement to ensure the implementation of tasks of health care system development in the Russian Federation.

Head of Rosatom Alexey Likhachev highlighted the significance of works in the field of creation of equipment for the health care system and importance of meeting the deadlines for fulfilling obligations.

The MSC-230 Superconducting Isochronous Proton Cyclotron for the JINR Biomedical Centre is designed for radiation therapy of patients with oncological diseases and biomedical research. The project aims at fundamental and applied developments for radiation biology and medicine, first of all, technologies of ultrashort pulsed delivery of ionizing radiation dose to the area of interest (flash therapy) based on the techniques of comfort irradiation. Another task is the creation of conditions for introducing advanced technologies in the field of proton therapy of oncological diseases into clinical practice. The project also seeks to organize a batch production of equipment of this type to supply it to the clinics of the Russian Federation and export it.

In addition, the Rosatom State Corporation and JINR continue developing the infrastructure for the synthesis and property study of superheavy elements at the Superheavy Element Factory. The current federal project implies the production of isotopes of transuranic elements, namely berkelium and californium, which are necessary, in particular, for the synthesis of new superheavy elements with atomic numbers 119 and 120. Another direction of works is the creation of a specialised separator for producing enriched target materials, as well as the creation of a superconducting ECR ion source at a frequency 28 GHz.

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Background information:
Earlier, in 2020, the Rosatom State Corporation and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research signed a Cooperation Agreement, which implies partnership in a number of leading scientific projects, including on the development of research in the field of nuclear medicine. In 2021, an Agreement on scientific cooperation between JSC NIIEFA and JINR was signed. In April 2022, JSC NIIEFA undertook to develop and produce the MSC-230 Superconducting Cyclotron for JINR to carry out flash therapy.