3
Treatment Delivery Control Room
2
High Energy Beam Line
1
Accelerator Based Neutron Source
4
Engineering Control Room
BNCT is a targeted, non-invasive combination cancer treatment. A patient is first infused with a non-toxic, non-radioactive boron-10 compound, which selectively accumulates in tumor tissue. TAE Life Sciences is developing a portfolio of novel target boron drugs to improve targeting, accumulation, and retention of boron in cancer cells.
BNCT is a binary treatment. First the patient is administered a targeted boron containing drug through an IV two hours before radiation treatment. The drug is nonradioactive and can be administered without isolating the patient.
After the infusion, the tumor is irradiated with low energy neutrons. The boron absorbs the neutrons in their nucleus and a highly energized reaction occurs breaking up the boron atom and releasing a Li and deadly alpha particle. This alpha particle causes double stranded DNA breaks killing the cancer cells while minimizing damage to healthy tissues.
The high energy beam line transfers the proton beam from the tandem accelerator output to the treatment rooms. It consists of quadrupole magnets to prevent de-focusing of the beam and bending magnets to steer it to the treatment rooms.
The system ion source generates high currents (nominal 10 mA) of negative hydrogen ions (H-) that are accelerated to 150 keV in the pre-accelerator before entering the tandem accelerator, which produces 2.5 MeV of energy.
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