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The CERN-MEDICIS (MEDical Isotopes Collected from ISolde) facility has delivered its first radioactive ion beam at CERN (Switzerland) in December 2017 to support the research and development in nuclear medicine using non-conventional radionuclides. Since then, fourteen institutes, including CERN, have joined the collaboration to drive the scientific program of this unique installation and evaluate the needs of the community to improve the research in imaging, diagnostics, radiation therapy and personalized medicine. The facility has been built as an extension of the ISOLDE (Isotope Separator On Line DEvice) facility at CERN. Handling of open radioisotope sources is made possible thanks to its Radiological Controlled Area and laboratory. Targets are being irradiated by the 1.4 GeV proton beam delivered by the CERN Proton Synchrotron Booster (PSB) on a station placed between the High Resolution Separator (HRS) ISOLDE target station and its beam dump. Irradiated target materials are also received from external institutes to undergo mass separation at CERN-MEDICIS. All targets are handled via a remote handling system and exploited on a dedicated isotope separator beamline. To allow for the release and collection of a specific radionuclide of medical interest, each target is heated to temperatures of up to 2,300°C. The created ions are extracted and accelerated to an energy up to 60 kV, and the beam steered through an off-line sector field magnet mass separator. This is followed by the extraction of the radionuclide of interest through mass separation and its subsequent implantation into a collection foil. In addition, the MELISSA (MEDICIS Laser Ion Source Setup At CERN) laser laboratory, in service since April 2019, helps to increase the separation efficiency and the selectivity. After collection, the implanted radionuclides are dispatched to the biomedical research centers, participating in the CERN-MEDICIS collaboration, for Research & Development in imaging or treatment. Since its commissioning, the CERN-MEDICIS facility has provided its partner institutes with non-conventional medical radionuclides such as Tb-149, Tb-152, Tb-155, Sm-153, Tm-165, Tm-167, Er-169, Yb-175, and Ac-225 with a high specific activity. This article provides a review of the achievements and milestones of CERN-MEDICIS since it has produced its first radioactive isotope in December 2017, with a special focus on its most recent operation in 2020.

During the last Long Shutdown, a scheduled maintenance period between physics runs, the two Large Hadron Collider (LHC) beam dumps were replaced with upgraded spares modules. It was then decided to conduct an in-house autopsy and a post-irradiation examination of the removed dumps to extract information essential for the 3rd LHC physics run and to aid the design of new generations of beam dumps able to cope with future upgrades of the LHC. The need for a postmortem analysis of the dump cores opened the opportunity to combine the autopsy with processes required for the disposal of the dumps as radioactive waste at a dedicated disposal facility in France. This had a direct impact in terms of overall optimization of the interventions (postmortem analysis and prepackaging) to be performed on the dump as well as in terms of minimizing of the radiological risk (ALARA), by reducing the exposure of the personnel by combining two interventions in one. The characterization of the dump as radioactive waste was performed by means of state-of-the-art Monte Carlo and analytical techniques verified experimentally via a series of dedicated radiochemical (using liquid scintillation) analyses, conducted in-house and in external specialized laboratories. Based on these results, the dumps will be disposed of as intermediate–medium-level (FMA-VC) waste at the ANDRA CSA repository in France.