ST. LOUIS (KMOX ) - A new Research Reactor is being added to the University of Missouri's site.
Mizzou is set to add a 47,000 square-foot reactor to the already popular MU Research Reactor (MURR).
Their current reactor is the most powerful university research reactor in the U.S. and the only one that will operates year round, 24 hours a day, six and a half days a week, for 52 weeks in a year.
MURR's expansion will improve the facility's research and medical isotope production space, offering more opportunity for treatment discoveries and developing those radiopharmaceuticals.
The Executive Director at MURR, Matt Sanford, says that what they're doing with medical isotopes and the fight against cancer is so important, but there are so many other practical technologies depending on research reactors.
"We really have an important job here from researching and producing nuclear medicine," said Sanford, "But we do so many other things to improve life in our work with epidemiology, archeometry, material science."
"The reactor is doing great work for all of nuclear science," said Sanford.
Sanford says they received $20 million in federal funding for this project, and hope to have the MURR extension completed by 2024.