Harvard Cyclotron Laboratory

The Harvard Cyclotron Laboratory operated from 1949 to 2002. It was most notable for its contributions to the development of proton therapy.

The Harvard Cyclotron Laboratory was built with office of Naval Research funds between 1946 and 1949 to replace an earlier, lower energy, cyclotron that was sent to Los Alamos for use in the Manhattan Project.

Until 1961, the laboratory primarily performed experiments in physics. The lab performed research and development in particle physics (including particle detectors development and testing), activation analysis, radiobiology, and solid state physics.The use of proton particle accelerators for external beam radiotherapy was largely developed at this facility in collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital. From 1961 to its closing, the laboratory provided proton therapy to over 9,000 patients. After 1974, "almost 3,000" patients were treated for ocular (eye) diseases. By the time the lab closed in 2002, its proton therapy treatments had been transferred to The Francis H. Burr Proton Therapy Center (then the Northeast Proton Therapy Center) at Massachusetts General Hospital.

The Harvard Cyclotron Laboratory (HCL) was an independent facility which provided irradiation services to a variety of users. The cyclotron operated from 1949 to 2002 and was most notable for its contributions to the development of proton therapy.

Address: 44 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA, United States of America, 02138

Site Number: 655

Alternate Names: Nuclear Laboratory

Historic CAPS Identifier: 254

Building Root Number: 04360

Architect (Original): Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch, and Abbott

Building Acquired: 1947

Constructed: 1947

Demolished: 2003

Status: Inactive

Materials for this building in our collection are not fully processed at this time.

Historical Notes:

The Nuclear Laboratory was built to house a replacement of the university's first cyclotron which was moved to Los Alamos, New Mexico during the second world war. The university provided the source of funds for construction while the cyclotron was funded by the United States government. The cyclotron was demolished in 2003 in preparation for the construction of the Northwest Laboratory Building.

The first harvard cyclotron was a low energy (12 MeV) proton cyclotron built in 1937, then dismantled and sent to Los Alamos in 1943 for use in the Manhattan Project. This early cyclotron, along with the design efforts for its successor, inspored Robert Wilson's seminal 1946 paper on the potential use of proton beams in radiotherapy...Here, one can see the beginnings of the many of the cutting edge decelopments in current radiation oncology. The proton therapy treatment planning system developed by Goitein and collaborators shares credit as one of the forebears of today's conformal and intesnity-modulated treatment planning systems now in routine clinical use in academic and community facilities around the world.