[Isotope-prod] Response from DOE-ONP

[Andrew Hutton]

Everyone.  

This morning, I had a telephone call from Dennis Phillips (Program Manager for Isotope Research) and Ethan Balkin (Program Manager for Isotope production) at DOE-ONP.  Hari sat in on the call.  

Our proposal reviewed very well, but did not make the cut for immediate (2017) funding, a disappointment.  However, it did make the cut for funding in 2018 if the presently foreseen budget is maintained in 2018.  

Our proposal which compared two different ways of making Cu67 was interesting to them as they are very worried about being able to make enough Cu67 for serious clinical trials and eventually regular production.  Previously, they had been concerned that Jefferson Lab had no experience with chemical separation.  Apparently, one of the reviewers knew Jamal and made an explicit comment that VCU was an excellent partner for us; a nice compliment for Jamal and his team!  

I asked if were expected to update the proposal; the response was no, we had been judged on our proposal and if we updated our proposal, everyone else would want to do the same and they would have to hold the review process all over again.  

Their only recommendation was that we should be ready to answer three questions:

How much Cu67 could we produce per week?  

How pure would it be?  

How much investment in infrastructure would be needed to achieve this production rate?  

I reiterated our invitation to visit; they tentatively agreed on the first or second week of April to come to Jefferson Lab to visit the LERF and then to stop at VCU on the way back to visit the separation facilities.  I will try and make it happen this time!  

So not a yes, not a no, but something in between.  We should have a meeting to discuss all of this and what we should be doing in the next few months.  

Thanks to you all for getting our proposal to this position, lets hope that we finally make it next time!  

Andrew
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