From left to right: Massachusetts State Representative Nick Collins, Edward J. Benz Jr., MD, President and CEO of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Susan Windham-Bannister, PhD, President and CEO of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the MLSC on October 23, 2013, celebrated the start of construction on a laboratory for making chemical tracers that “light up” cancer cells and molecular pathways, a technology for research on improving cancer diagnosis and developing precision drugs matched to individual patients. The Molecular Cancer Imaging Facility (MCIF) will house a cyclotron for making short-lived molecular imaging probes that are tracked by PET scanners. The process is key to evaluating experimental drugs and showing whether they hit vulnerable targets within cancer cells.
Construction of the facility at Dana-Farber’s Harbor Campus in South Boston’s Innovation District is supported in part by a $10 million grant from the MLSC, a state-funded investment agency that supports life sciences innovation, research, development and commercialization.