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Media Relations

70 years later, IU Cyclotron works to save lives

Nuclear physics at Indiana University Bloomington has come a long way.

The program was created 70 years ago by A.C.G. Mitchell, hired by former IU President Herman B Wells to initiate basic physics research in 1938. Between 1939 and 1941, faculty members and students worked in Swain Hall to build the program's centerpiece, a 90-ton "cyclotron" that accelerates hydrogen nuclei, or protons, as they zoom around in a circle flanked by powerful magnets.

The Swain Hall cyclotron is gone, but IU cyclotron research is alive and well.

The Indiana University Cyclotron Facility (IUCF) on the IU Bloomington campus houses a cyclotron 40 times more powerful than the original. The proton beam is used in a wide variety of ways, from testing the resilience of astronaut equipment to treating cancer. But aiding space exploration and medicine -- this is not what IU physicists had in mind as they prodded their atomic creation.

A little history

In the fall of 1942, just four years after IU's first cyclotron began construction under the guidance of Franz Kurie, the cyclotron played a small but crucial role in research conducted by physicists from the Met Lab in Chicago, which shortly would be absorbed into the greatest arms race of all time -- the Manhattan Project. Formally known as the Manhattan Engineer District, the Manhattan Project refers to the time period between 1941 to 1946 when the United States conducted research that led to development of the world's first nuclear weapon, the atomic bomb.

"I don't think many people realize the tremendous pressure scientists were under to make the atomic bomb when they heard the Germans had a head start," said Emeritus Professor of Physics Dan Miller. Miller was in the Navy at the time, but has conducted extensive research about the project and interviewed many of its contributors. "The scientists felt that if the Germans got it first, it was the end for us."

The team of scientists from Chicago -- which included nuclear physics legends John Marshall and Louis Slotin -- came to Bloomington because IU's cyclotron was superior to the Chicago cyclotron.

The operation was top secret. A guard was stationed in the hallway of Swain Hall, blocking student and faculty access to the crucial experiments -- and, as one professor recalled, the closest bathroom. Even a graduate student who ran the cyclotron had no idea what experiments were being done, or for what purpose they were intended.

"The cyclotron was originally built for basic physics research, but switched temporarily to neutron diffusion research to help the effort to save the country," said Miller.

Just months later, scientists successfully created the first chain reaction in uranium. And two years after that, the first tests were conducted in Alamogordo, New Mexico. In 1945, the United States dropped atomic and nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, after which Japan surrendered.

Diverting attention (and protons) to cancer

The original cyclotron was shut down in 1968. Construction of the present facility began the following year, and it was formally commissioned in 1976. After 20 years of successful nuclear physics research, the IUCF was selected for a new project -- treating cancer patients with proton radiation.

In July 2000, More than $10 million of grant funding was released to begin constructing the Midwest Proton Radiotherapy Institute (MPRI), at the time, only the third facility of its kind in the United States. Harvard's Cyclotron Laboratory first offered the technique in 1964.

Proton radiotherapy uses protons (hydrogen nuclei) to attack cancer cells. Traditional radiation therapy uses X-rays, gamma rays or electrons. The difference is in the physics of the radiation being used, which allows for many benefits. Although long-term studies of the efficacy of proton therapy continue, its advocates have shown proton beams can be less damaging to healthy tissue than traditional forms of radiation -- yet still deliver a destructive blow to targeted cancer cells.

"This is especially beneficial because traditional radiotherapy can cause cancer in the tissues it passes through on the way to the target cells," said Susan Klein, research scientist in biomedical and life sciences at the IUCF. "Nobody wants to cure a patient of cancer only to see him or her develop something worse 20 years later."

There are now five proton therapy centers in operation in the United States, with about a dozen new facilities in the works. Of that handful, only one continues to push the envelope by actively researching and developing new techniques and machines for the emerging technology.

"We're very proud of the MPRI," said Klein. "It's the only proton radiation therapy center in the country not 100 percent dedicated to clinical procedures. Because of this, we're working hard to develop the next best thing in proton radiotherapy, and we will. We have the beam time, the researchers, the drive and the motivation to make it happen."

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