NIU proton research center to get hearing

By JONATHAN BILYK

Northern Illinois University hopes to get a green light from state planners this week for its plan to bring a new option for cancer treatment to the region.


Representatives of NIU will go before the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board on Tuesday for a hearing on the university’s request to build its proposed Northern Illinois Proton Treatment and Research Center.

The treatment and research center is proposed to be the first-of-its-kind in the upper Midwest, using a proton accelerator to treat a variety of cancers. The center would be built in the DuPage National Technology Park in West Chicago contiguous to the northern boundary of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, which in the late 1980s developed the first proton-therapy accelerator for use in cancer treatment, according to the proton treatment and research center’s Web site.

source: Kane County Chronicle