The University of Saskatchewan says thanks to PrairiesCan funding, the Fedoruk Centre at USask can accelerate the development of new radioisotope products that Saskatchewan researchers require for developing nuclear imaging or therapeutic ‘radiopharmaceuticals’ for health care.

PrairiesCan announced Monday at the 11th International Conference on Isotopes taking place in Saskatoon, $410,650 in funding to develop products for health-care research.

A USask news release says the Fedoruk Centre manufactures a nuclear imaging pharmaceutical that allows over 2,500 Saskatchewan patients per year to receive PET-CT scans for cancer diagnoses with many radioisotope products having shelf lives of minutes or hours which means potency is lost during shipping, so it has to be made locally to be effective whether being used in research or in a clinical setting.

The products involved are Gallium [68]-Chloride, Sodium-Fluoride[18], and Fluorine[18]- a prostate-specific membrane antigen with the raw materials being applied to develop cancer-imaging probes, support clinical trials, and enhance therapies.

The 11th International Conference on Isotopes will take place until Thursday and has attracted representatives from over 30 different countries.