Through funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Ontario Research Fund and Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation (PMHF), UHN has recently invested into the construction of a cyclotron—a particle accelerator used to produce medical isotopes. These isotopes are used for a number of essential services, including diagnostic imaging and cancer treatments.

Tentatively scheduled to open at the end of 2012, the cyclotron will be housed inside a bunker at Toronto General Hospital. Once the isotopes are produced they will enter a hot cell in a nearby laboratory and readied for hospital use. Having this facility at UHN drastically reduces the cost of importing these materials and allows for the use of isotopes with a very short expiry or ''half-life''. With greater control of how, when and types of isotopes used, the cyclotron will pave the way for research into better diagnostic imaging and new therapeutic treatments.

Construction of this facility would not have been possible without the generous support of PMHF and specifically, the thousands of participants and donors involved in The Ride to Conquer Cancer. UHN is extremely grateful for their invaluable contribution to this exciting project.