A symposium today on medical isotopes is bringing a panel of experts and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, founder/president of Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, to the Tri-Cities.

Rev. Jackson's support for the program will help bring national attention to understanding the potential of medical isotopes, said Gary Troyer, chairman of Citizens for Medical Isotopes, a Tri-City nonprofit that's sponsoring the symposium at the Three Rivers Convention Center.

It will help highlight the Tri-Cities' role as a medical isotope production and research center, Troyer said. Medical isotopes are used to diagnose and treat a variety of medical conditions including cancer.

Jackson also will be at Advanced Medical Isotope Corp. in Kennewick, said Bill Stokes, the company's chief executive officer. The company recently purchased the latest compact linear accelerator to make Fluorine-18, which can be used to help diagnose cancerous tumors and heart problems through positron emission tomography, or PET, scans.

The free symposium which runs from 1 to 4:15 p.m. will have a number of speakers, including Ruth Bryan of Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, and John Michel Gahl of the University of Missouri Research Reactor Center.

Bryan will speak about the successful experiments her colleagues conducted a few years ago using radioactive medical isotopes to kill HIV-infected cells in mice, Troyer said.

"The fact that AIDS virus can be killed is revolutionary," he said.

That research stirred Jackson's interest in medical isotopes, and that's why he agreed to be part of the program, Troyer said.

With more research and availability of medical isotopes, there'll be better treatment options available in the U.S., said Laurel Piippo, a member of Citizens for Medical Isotopes.

Troyer said 90-Yttrium, an isotope first used to cure Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, was originally separated and purified at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory by Lane Bray and Dennis Wester in the late '80s.

Having a local isotope manufacturing facility will encourage area hospitals and medical researchers to rely on nuclear medicine, Troyer said. And, increased government funding could spawn a cottage industry of isotope manufacturing in the Tri-Cities.