Nuke Pact To Fund Cancer Research

Scientists trying to establish Idaho Falls as a brain-cancer treatment center got a big boost when Gov. Phil Batt squeezed an economic-development grant out of the U.S. Energy Department.

The next step is determining how to divide up the potential cash, which could amount to more than half of the $30 million the federal government has agreed to pay.

As part of Batt’s settlement allowing the Energy Department and Navy to ship nuclear waste to the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory for storage, the department will pay for eastern Idaho economic development over the next five years through an account administered by the governor.

The major identified project is the development of boron neutron capture therapy, a proposed technique of soaking brain tumors with boron to then absorb the neutrons from a reactor or accelerator, killing the tumor without affecting adjacent brain tissue.

The Idaho Brain Tumor Center, which leased the INEL’s Power Burst Facility nuclear reactor in hopes of turning it into a clinic, now is trying to assemble a consortium of companies and public entities to use the money and make the clinic a reality.

The group could include other companies with complementary expertise, regional universities and INEL contractor Lockheed Martin Idaho Technologies.

Bill Sewell, center program director, said the people working to develop the technology realized they could make the most of the grant if they pooled their talents. And Batt made it clear he did not want a power struggle for the money, Sewell said.