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Plano company makes breakthrough nuclear material
A Plano company is making material that can be used to fight cancer and power nuclear reactors. FOX 4's Lori Brown has more.
PLANO, Texas - A Plano-based company has made a breakthrough in making materials in cancer treatment that help fight cancer cells from within the body.
Actinide Inc. and Ytterbium-176
Ytterbium-176
Local perspective:
Actinide Inc. is a Plano-based company that produces Ytterbium-176, a material that can be used for cancer drugs and providing fuel for nuclear reactors.
Ytterbium-176 is made with the company's particle accelerator, named Endurance, by turning metal into plasma and accelerating it to the speed of light through a magnet.
The material is worth around $30,000 for a gram.
The particle accelerator also creates High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium, or HALEU, which can be used as fuel for small nuclear reactors.
Big picture view:
Novartis, which makes cancer-fighting drugs, uses Ytterbium-176 to create a targeted cancer treatment that delivers radiation directly into cancer cells to destroy them from within the body.
What they're saying:
"This is the precursor material to a new wave of cancer therapeutics known as radio pharmaceuticals."
Eric Olszewski, the CEO of Actinide Inc., says he and his business partner Robert Mendelsohn knew their particle accelerator could be configured to do more.
"We were able to make a next-generation fuel for small format reactors at an experimental scale to demonstrate the technology," Olszewski tells FOX 4's Lori Brown.
Eric Olszewski
What's next:
Actinide Inc. is seeking to scale up their production of Ytterbium-176 from grams to kilograms.
The company says scaling up production will help end reliance on foreign materials for the cancer drugs and uranium.
The Source: Information in this story comes from an interview with leadership at Actinide Inc.