Description of capability
Joseph V Minervini, John Brisson, et al. are proposing the development of superconducting proton cyclotron for proton radiotherapy. Joe and team came up with another design (also MIT IP) that is “ironless”. It doesn’t require an iron pole; instead use superconducting coils for shaping the field distribution and shielding the field like it’s done in MRI systems. This lets you change the current in the magnet, so you can tune the proton energy. That means you get a cleaner beam, and you can preserve the whole beam intensity (e.g. 90 nA). This could enable ‘flash therapy’.
Key people
Joseph V Minervini, John Brisson, Leslie Bromberg, Novum Industria LLC
Technology Readiness Level (1-9)
2
Needs that this could potentially address
Better proton cyclotron therapy device
Tech specs
Estimated time & cost to commercialize
- Joe and team want to build the superconducting system + cryogenics, somebody else like IBA or Sumitomo Corporation would build the beam line and the rest of the system.
- They envision a joint venture (called RTD), funded primarily by a Taiwanese corporation called H2, with Novum Industria LLC and another Tennessee-based company ProNova as co-developers of the first few prototypes in exchange for ownership in the joint venture. The John Brisson Group would also do sponsored research, funded by RTD. Leslie could use help thinking through
Outstanding risks
References
2023-07-21 Leslie Bromberg, Joe Minervini, John Brisson 2023-11-08 Leslie Bromberg