Operation of New AccSys Medical Diagnostics Accelerator System at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Announced

Pleasanton, CA - June 3, 1999

      Dr. Robert W. Hamm, President and CEO of AccSys Technology, Inc. ("AccSys") announced today that the new radio-frequency quadrupole (RFQ) accelerator designed and built by AccSys for the detection of trace levels of ³H in biological samples using accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) and recently installed at the Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (CAMS) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has been commissioned and is now operating. The first simultaneous acceleration and detection of two different isotopic hydrogen beams is shown in the two data acquisition screens below. The right screen shows the ¹H beam current detected on a beam stop placed downstream from one port on the magnetic spectrometer during the sample run, and the left screen shows the spectrum from a solid state detector mounted on a different spectrometer port. The tall peak is the trace level of ³H ions, which is well separated from the contaminants in the other peak. The ratio of the count rates of these two beams is indicated on the right screen.

      The CAMS has been developing this unique medical diagnostics technique since 1990. Their existing large accelerator has been used to measure the biological effects of extremely small amounts of chemical substances from suspected toxins and dietary nutrients. Joint development of the compact new system for ³H detection was carried out by AccSys under a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with LLNL funded in part by a Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Cancer Institute.* According to Dr. Hamm, "his prototype system will now be calibrated using known samples and then used by the researchers to determine its full potential as a biomedical analytical instrument."



      The CAMS laboratory at LLNL is one of the few facilities in the world developing biomedical and pharmaceutical applications of AMS. Early biomedical AMS tests have used laboratory animals, but the project goal is to use this technique to be able to study the biological effects on humans of suspected carcinogenic materials, as well as pharmaceuticals and toxins using only trace levels that are not harmful.



      AccSys Technology, Inc. was founded in 1985 to commercialize advanced radiofrequency (rf) ion linac technology for applications in medicine, industry and research. In addition to custom linacs such as this one that are being developed for special applications, AccSys currently produces two product lines for use in medicine (PULSAR®) and industry (LANSAR®). AccSys is the world's leading manufacturer of rf ion linacs, having produced and installed 17 systems since 1987.

* This work has been performed under SBIR Grant No. 5R44 CA69960-03 from the National Cancer Institute.