Medicine

In X-radiography, synchrotron light permits the increase of contrast, either by the subtraction of images from different parts of the absorption threshold of a marker element, or thanks to the ability to work with monochromatic and parallel beams, which leads to interference that reinforces contrast without the injection of a specific product.  Some clinical tests are underway. 

Cellular and tissue imagery techniques use all types of beams: IR, UV, and X. Their interest lies in the rapidity of measurement as well as the micrometric, actually nanometric, size of the beams, which provides high-resolution scanning imagery with natural, chemical, or molecular contrast.  SOLEIL’s activities will be particularly important in this field.  Les techniques d'imagerie cellulaire et tissulaire exploitent tous les faisceaux : IR, UV et X.

SOLEIL’s activities in radiotherapy should be principally based around radiobiology, complementing the activities conducted at the European synchrotron facility in Grenoble (ESRF) around new radiotherapy techniques, activated phototherapy and use of microbeams.

There are not yet any purely medical beams at SOLEIL, but among the 24 currently operational beamlines, half a dozen are well adapted to medical activities, with some of them having even been developed in large part for that reason.

The Melusyn (Medicine and Synchrotron Light) group is an independent think tank whose mission is to assess the possibilities of developing medical activities in synchrotron light centers.  It involves around fifty members; doctors, biologists, biochemists, biophysicists, and some industrial entities.  Melusyn is a group housed by the ECRIN association.