Russia May Start Particle Accelerator Cancer Treatments by 2020

NOVOSIBIRSK (Sputnik) — Russian scientists are planning to begin clinical trials of the latest boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT), which aims to destroy cancer tumors by a particle accelerator, by 2020, Pavel Lobachev, the director of the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics, said Monday.

"The task is to renovate the building [for the trials] with the help of The Federal Agency for Scientific Organizations, we [Budker Institute] will do the accelerator, so that we could begin clinical trials by 2020," Lobachev told journalists.

The director of the Institute of Nuclear Physics also said that in the past year the scientists have been able to reinforce the particle accelerator's capacity to the level that allows to carry out the trials. According to Lobachev, the new goal was to perfect the delivery of the boron compounds into the malignant tumors.

Lobachev expressed hope that BNCT program would launch in 2017 and added that it had united a number of Russian research institutes specializing in chemistry, biology, physics and medicine.

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