The University of Wisconsin (UW) School of Medicine and Public Health has begun construction on a $62 million cyclotron facility on its campus in Madison. The project will add alpha-emitter production to the school’s theranostics research and radioisotope supply operations.
The 13,000-square-foot facility, inside the existing Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research complex, will house two new cyclotrons. One of them is an alpha-particle cyclotron that the university describes as the first modern system of its kind installed in the U.S. The new machines will be able to produce astatine-211 (At-211), an alpha-emitting radioisotope, and will raise the university’s current production capacity two- to eightfold, depending on the isotope, according to UW-Madison.
The university has shipped radioisotopes nationally for about a decade as a member of the U.S. Department of Energy University Isotope Network. It plans to expand supply to clinical trials and research centers once the facility is finished, which is expected by May 2028. The project is funded by a National Institutes of Health grant, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, and private donations.
