Senior officials from Industry Canada paid a visit to AAPS and TRIUMF on September 21, 2011. Led by Assistant Associate Deputy Minister Mitch Davies from Ottawa, the three visitors spent about 75 minutes at the laboratory. The group met with staff from AAPS and TRIUMF to learn about international and industrial partnerships and then took a short tour of the facility. Mr. Davies was accompanied by Philip Fleming and Eric Barker from the Pacific regional office of Industry Canada.
During the first part of the visit, Mitch Davies got an overview of TRIUMF from Director Nigel Lockyer. Paul Schaffer provided an update on the NRCan-supported project to demonstrate Tc-99m production on existing cyclotrons; he also talked about the broader nuclear medicine program and the expanding research and development ties with Nordion. Reiner Kruecken spoke about the physics side of “advancing isotopes for science and medicine” and commented on the window of opportunity for TRIUMF to lead the world in some key measurements. Bob Laxdal explained the cross-cutting impact of TRIUMF’s expertise in accelerators and the partnership with PAVAC Industries, Inc., that gave Canadian industry a new competency and created new market connections to India and China. Jerry Porter from Nordion talked about the successful history of the manufacturing partnership between TRIUMF and Nordion. AAPS’ CEO Colin Jones provided an update on the commercialization projects at the CECR and highlighted the important role that proximity to TRIUMF plays in the organization’s success. In the ensuing discussion, Mitch asked shrewd questions and was interested in the scope of the market analysis for the emerging geotomography project at AAPS.
The lightning-fast tour gave all three visitors a chance to experience the site up close and personal. They visited the SRF labs, the nuclear-physics experiments in ISAC-I, the ATLAS Tier-1 Data Centre (courtesy Reda Tafirout), and the GMP labs for nuclear medicine. They visited AAPS for a short demonstration of the radiation-reducing technology being developed by IKOMED Technologies, Inc.
This visit was an important part of sharing the excellence and opportunity of the TRIUMF-AAPS partnerships with some of the key managers of the public’s tax dollars for science.
