"The idea is good," Vladimir Putin said at his last Kremlin news conference as Russian president, while commenting on a proposal by a journalist.
Putin said there is a similar center - the radiology research center - in St. Petersburg. "The head of that institution has done a great deal to not only preserve this institution but ensure its effective development too," he said, adding that nuclear experts recently visited the center and were surprised by its high standards.
He said the assigned tasks needed to be implemented gradually, step-by-step.
The Russian Federal Medical-Biological Agency developed a draft federal targeted program to develop nuclear medicine in the treatment in oncological diseases and other illnesses, which annually take the lives of thousands of Russians, the agency head said Wednesday.
"The project is planned for implementation in 2010-2015 and includes the construction of four nuclear research centers - in Dimitrovgrad (Ulyanovsk Region), Tomsk, Yekaterinburg (Urals) and Dubna (Moscow Region)," Valentin Uiba said.
He added the program would cost 26 billion rubles ($1.05 billion) for Dimitrovgrad, where a section of the infrastructure is currently ready, and 34 billion rubles ($1.38 billion) for Tomsk.
