Date: Nov 15, 2013 Source: MDA (
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A company that started off as a high-energy physics research firm has landed large contracts from a prominent cancer research hospital to supply machines that beam radiation into deep-seated cancerous tumors.
AccSys Technology, Inc. (Pleasanton, CA), a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., of Japan, manufacturers patented linear accelerators (linacs), which use particle beams to strategically target cancer cells. The technology proved so successful that its linacs technology has been adopted by hospitals and cancer research institutions worldwide. Having much success already in cancer-mitigating technologies, one large cancer-research hospital offered two large contracts to license AccSys' linacs technology for integration into a new system designed for a type of radiation therapy known as boron neutron capture. This type of therapy targets tumors at the cellular level, without causing damage to adjacent cells and tissue.
MDA predecessors SDIO and BMDO funded AccSys through several SBIR contracts in the 1980s and 1990s to design what became the company's signature linacs technology.
AccSys Technology commercially produces radio-frequency-ion-based linear accelerators for use in biomedical and industrial applications.
