Wisconsin-based fusion technology company SHINE Technologies has signed a long-term supply agreement with Nucleus RadioPharma for the supply of lutetium-177, a radioisotope used in cancer treatment therapies, including those in development for the treatment of neuroendocrine tumors, prostate cancer, and other solid tumors.

BWX Technologies subsidiary BWXT Medical has agreed to provide Fusion Pharmaceuticals with generators to produce actinium-225, a medical isotope used to treat cancer in clinical trials.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is suing nuclear battery developer NDB Inc., charging that the company and its chief executive officer, Nima Golsharifi, defrauded investors by making materially false and misleading statements in a company press release.

On April 10, the University of Missouri (MU) took its first formal step toward building NextGen MURR when school officials issued the request for qualifications for the project. The RFQ is a solicitation for interested companies to offer the design, engineering, licensing, environmental, and developmental services that are needed for NextGen MURR, planned to be larger and more capable than the school’s existing University of Missouri Research Reactor (MURR)—which itself has been the most powerful research reactor and most intense neutron source on any U.S. campus since it began operating in 1966.

Sherwood-Randall

The Biden administration on March 2 announced a new strategy to remove and secure certain highly radioactive materials that are used in hospitals and other civilian commercial facilities as a measure to prevent such materials from being acquired by terrorists for making “dirty bombs” or other weapons. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, White House assistant to the president for Homeland Security, shared the details of the National Security Memorandum to Counter Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism and Advance Nuclear and Radioactive Material Security (NSM19) later that same day in a discussion at the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) global security organization in Washington, D.C., according to a report in the New York Times.

National strategy: Biden’s newly signed NSM 19 “integrates, in a systematic way, U.S. policies to counter the use of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons by non-state actors; sets out unified priorities for Departments and Agencies across the Federal government; and affirms the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to work with state, local, tribal, international, and private sector partners on preventing, mitigating, and responding to WMD terrorism threats.”

NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes has completed construction and all equipment installation at its new facility in Beloit, Wis., to produce the medical radioisotope molybdenum-99 without the use of high-enriched uranium, the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration announced last week.

Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Oregon State University (OSU) have developed a promising new method to isolate and study some of the rarest elements on Earth. Focused first on curium, they have identified three new complexes containing curium ions and revealed the molecules’ 3D structures, as well as previously unknown features.

ANS’s August 4 online event “The New Space Race is Going Nuclear” featured several expert panelists who discussed the growing importance of nuclear technologies in space commercialization and exploration. Although nuclear energy has long played a role in space missions, participants discussed the latest exciting developments in the space nuclear field and presented their views on how increased application of nuclear technologies could fundamentally transform the ways in which both crewed and uncrewed space missions are carried out.

Accelerators and other new facilities are producing an increasing share of the radioisotopes that were once sourced solely from a handful of research reactors around the globe; demand for alpha-emitters is increasing; and the need for an ensured supply of both radioactive and stable isotopes is now heightened as many countries seek an alternative to Russian isotopes. Those are just a few of the key points that emerged from a recent webinar, “Demand and Supply of Isotopes Around the World: From Diverse Perspectives,” organized by the World Council of Isotopes, along with the Sylvia Fedoruk Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation and the University of Saskatchewan, the hosts of the upcoming 11th International Conference on Isotopes (11ICI).

The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), a Department of Defense organization focused on swiftly putting commercial technology to use in the U.S. military, has awarded contracts for two nuclear technologies—compact fusion and radioisotope heat—for spacecraft that could carry a high-power payload and freely maneuver in cislunar space. The objective is to accelerate ground and flight testing and launch a successful orbital prototype demonstration of each approach in 2027.

A lethal banana disease, known as the Fusarium wilt or Panama wilt, is spreading rapidly in South America and threatening global supplies of the Cavendish banana, the world’s most popular export variety. Working with experts in the Andean countries of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, the IAEA and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) are using irradiation and nuclear-derived techniques to combat, manage, and prevent the spread of the disease. The IAEA describes the work in a December 24 news article.

Secretary of energy Jennifer Granholm and secretary of health and human services (HHS) Xavier Becerra on December 20 jointly certified that the worldwide supply of the medical radioisotope molybdenum-99 produced without the use of high-enriched uranium is now sufficient to meet the needs of patients in the United States.

The Department of Energy is dedicating $2 million to the establishment of a first-of-its-kind program to train undergraduate and graduate students in isotope research and development, production, and processing. Texas A&M University will serve as the Isotope Traineeship Coordination (ITC) site, collaborating with a team of 14 colleges and universities and three national laboratories: Argonne National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration has issued a cooperative agreement worth $13 million to Niowave, of Lansing, Mich., to support the commercial production of molybdenum-99, a critical isotope used in more than 40,000 medical procedures in the United States each day, including the diagnosis of heart disease and cancer.

Swapping conventional electromagnetic radiation for fast neutrons, a team of research engineers at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom, working with the Jozef Stefan Institute of Slovenia, report that they have successfully transmitted digital information wirelessly using nuclear radiation. The researchers’ attempts to transmit words and numbers using standard ASCII code “were 100 percent successful,” according to a November 10 press release from Lancaster University. Their research will be published in an upcoming issue of Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research and is now available online.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) has amended Ontario Power Generation’s (OPG) operating license for its Darlington nuclear power station near Clarington, Ontario, allowing the company to produce the medical radioisotope molybdenum-99 using Darlington’s Unit 2 CANDU reactor. OPG subsidiary Laurentis Energy Partners, in conjunction with BWXT Medical, is leading the program to produce Mo-99 at Darlington.

What is one thing that bridges, oil wells, and cancer treatment therapies have in common? Reliance on radioisotopes. Radioisotopes have played an important role in our society for decades, yet their benefits often go unrecognized. As Congress makes progress on new bipartisan infrastructure legislation, radioisotopes are essential to bringing new infrastructure projects to life.

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration has issued a cooperative agreement worth $35 million to SHINE Technologies, based in Janesville, Wis., to support the commercial production of molybdenum-99, a critical isotope used in more than 40,000 medical procedures in the United States each day, including the diagnosis of heart disease and cancer.

ARTMS, a Canadian producer of medical isotopes, announced that it has registered the cyclotron production of gallium-68 with the government of Canada, filing a Type 1 Master File with the Health Products & Food Branch of Health Canada. The Ga-68 radioisotope is used in nuclear medicine diagnostic procedures utilizing positron emission tomography (PET) imaging.

NorthStar Medical Technologies of Beloit, Wis., will receive $37 million under two cooperative agreements with the National Nuclear Security Administration for the production of molybdenum-99 without the use of high-enriched uranium. Considered a critical medical radioisotope, Mo-99 is used in more than 40,000 medical procedures in the United States each day, including the diagnosis of heart disease and cancer.