PI Public Lecture Series:
Title: Get a half-life:
Isotopes as the unlikely hero of modern medicine
Abstract: Emerging techniques and technologies, drawn from many fields of science and medicine, are allowing us to peer inside the human body with unprecedented sensitivity and to probe the fundamental processes of life - in real time. TRIUMF’s Life Sciences Division is making such studies possible with isotopes, short-lived elements that are harnessed and incorporated into next generation pharmaceuticals designed to provide incredible insight into the complex systems that make up life. With its specialized expertise and facilities in particle accelerator targets, isotope production, and radiochemistry, TRIUMF - Canada’s national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics and accelerator-based science - has unique capabilities in this area..
In his talk, Dr. Paul Schaffer, Associate Laboratory Director of TRIUMF’s Life Sciences Division, will explore how he and his team use accelerators to develop tools and techniques to advance the field of nuclear medicine. He’ll share leading-edge developments and discuss the promise advanced medical isotopes hold for disease diagnostics and therapeutics, as well as talk about his team’s award-winning efforts to produce a secure supply of critical medical isotopes.
Biography: Dr. Paul Schaffer graduated from the University of British Columbia in 1998 with a B.Sc. in chemistry and biochemistry. In 2003, he completed his Ph.D. in chemistry at McMaster University with his doctoral work focused on the design and synthesis of technetium and rhenium chelates as potential new radioimaging or radiotherapy agents. Dr. Schaffer stayed at McMaster for a brief period of postdoctoral work and then settled as a Research Scientist at the McMaster Nuclear Reactor (MNR). In this role, Dr. Schaffer was responsible for demonstrating medical applications for isotopes produced at MNR.
In 2006, Dr. Schaffer entered the private sector as a Lead Scientist at General Electric (GE) Global Research in upstate New York. There, he was responsible for developing novel radiotracers for GE Healthcare. In the latter half of 2009, Dr. Schaffer returned to Canada to accept his new role as Deputy Head of TRIUMF’s Nuclear Medicine program, and is now Associate Laboratory Director of TRIUMF’s Life Sciences Division. He is responsible for maintaining TRIUMF’s medical isotope and radiotracer production programs in support of neurological and oncology research. He is also interested in establishing a research program geared toward labeling novel large molecular weight compounds for imaging and diagnosis of disease. In response to the 2007-2009 99mTc supply crises, Dr. Schaffer and his collaborators spearheaded one of four successful efforts to establish proof of concept commercial-scale production of 99mTc. This effort saw four institutions come together with funding from Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) to demonstrate direct production of this isotope using Canada’s existing medical cyclotron infrastructure. .
For his leadership on the NRCan effort, Dr. Schaffer was recently recognized by Business in Vancouver as one of British Columbia’s Top Forty under Forty individuals; acknowledging him as an effective researcher with an ability to create teams that produce high-impact results on short time scales. More recently, the NRCan-ITAP team was awarded the 2015 NSERC Brockhouse Prize for Interdisciplinary Research.