Introduction
Recently, the accelerator projects table on our website ISNCT.net has been attracting increasing attention from the professional community: I increasingly encounter references to our table in conference presentations, scientific papers, and PhD theses. Representatives of individual accelerator-based BNCT projects are also contacting us more and more often through the feedback form to request corrections to information about their projects. On the one hand, this is very gratifying, because our table was created only recently, in 2021, as a result of the volunteer efforts of a group of young scientists – the Communication Task Force (CTF), and their desire to provide the international BNCT community with current and useful information on the state of BNCT worldwide. On the other hand, the increased attention and the fact that the table is cited in authoritative sources place a greater responsibility on our modest CTF group for the quality and timeliness of the data presented in the table. The situation is further complicated by the fact that BNCT is currently entering a phase of active growth in the number of medical centers conducting clinical trials. Therefore, our table is increasingly being consulted not only by the international scientific community, but also by industry and patients, which places additional responsibility on us.
The purpose of this text is to give readers a more detailed understanding of how we populate the table and thereby make this work easier while improving its quality. We hope this article will be useful to researchers, accelerator developers, clinical centers, potential partners, and anyone who uses the table as a source of information on the development of BNCT.
1. Preferred Information Sources
“The information provided should be supported by authoritative independent sources” — this is our most important principle when compiling the table! For each project, we try to find at least one authoritative external source confirming the information presented in the table. There may be several such sources, since more is always better.
Sources that we consider preferable and sufficiently reliable:
✅ Publications in scientific journals indexed by Web of Science, Scopus, and other bibliographic databases. Ideally, a publication should have a unique digital identifier (DOI). Therefore, I try to include links to the DOI’s or to our repository in the table. An additional advantage of these links is that they are more stable and less likely to disappear or change over time. At the same time, I try to use the most relevant and recent scientific publications related to the specific accelerator project. Therefore, if you see a reference to a publication from many years ago, you may reasonably conclude that the information presented there is probably outdated.
✅ Publications in major authoritative national media outlets. Clinical trials registered in specialized registries also fall into this category. Also, in my view, detailed reports in regional media that include photographs and videos of accelerators are quite credible.
✅ An on-site inspection of the facility by a CTF member can also serve as additional confirmation of the existence of a project and its current status. In other words, if I have seen your accelerator with my own eyes, it will definitely be included in the table at least with the status “under development,” even if there are not yet enough references to independent sources.
It is important to note that the presence of a project in the table does not mean that it is capable of reaching clinical readiness. This is precisely why the table has a separate column showing the current status of each project: from development and construction to commissioning, clinical trials, and patient treatment. In practice, some projects may remain in “under construction” status for many years even when the equipment and facility actually exist. Wherever possible, we try to confirm the current status of each project with an additional independent reference.
At the same time, the absence of a project from the table should not automatically be interpreted as evidence that the project itself does not exist. In some cases, it simply means that the CTF does not yet have enough independent information to include it.
Sources that we do not consider sufficiently reliable:
❌ Personal websites. The same applies to corporate websites if the company does not have a long track record. Unfortunately, such websites are not permanent and may suddenly disappear or change their URLs together with all the information they contain, leaving my link to them broken. This has happened several times already. Therefore, I try to include links to corporate websites only if there are already other, more authoritative references for the project or if the company has a long history.
❌ Websites such as Business Wire, Newswire, Presswire, etc., which publish paid press releases. Essentially, anyone can publish almost any news on these platforms for a relatively small fee. In practice, publications on these platforms mean little and may not lead to any real results. Ten signed MOUs, by themselves, are not the evidence that a working accelerator exists.
❌ Websites and other resources that are not accessible to an average unregistered user. For example, news on X.com, Instagram, WeChat or other platforms and social networks that require regional registration or aren’t accessible internationally.
❌ Patents. The existence of patents does not by itself mean that a working accelerator, technology, or drug exists. As the author of several patents myself, I know this from personal experience: “coming up with something” and “coming up with something that actually works” are two very different things, with a huge gap between them.
❌ Unverified claims without independent evaluation. Yes, you can write to us through the feedback form or at our email address news@isnct.net saying that you have achieved a proton current of 10 or 20 mA at an energy of 2.5 MeV and a neutron flux meeting BNCT requirements. However, as a physicist with personal experience measuring these quantities, I will not simply take your word for it. Careful measurement of even the most basic parameters of a specific accelerator could easily be the subject of a scientific publication, which I would be glad to read.
Of course, you may have noticed that the table currently contains some less-than-reliable sources. I would not call this a violation of our own criteria. Any confirmation is still better than a complete lack of data. It simply means that, whenever possible, we will try to use more reliable sources and gradually replace some references with more authoritative ones.
2. A Conservative Approach
Here I would like to describe the broader picture of what, in my opinion, is happening in BNCT in 2026 and explain in detail why the table is compiled in such a conservative manner, with an emphasis on projects that have already been built or projects that are at an advanced stage of development and have a history of scientific publications. We could have taken a different approach, as is sometimes done in similar tables, and listed absolutely every project ever mentioned, at any stage, even at the discussion stage, without providing substantial references.
First, a proton accelerator is very expensive and complex equipment, often unique. An accelerator can cost tens of millions of dollars, and its production and operation require highly qualified personnel at the PhD level. Second, installing an accelerator and generating neutrons require a dedicated facility, special safety measures, and the appropriate regulatory approvals from the authorities. Third, experiments involving living subjects require approval from a local ethics committee. Conducting BNCT clinical trials involving humans, and especially providing treatment, requires a large number of regulatory approvals and highly specialized physicians with the highest level of expertise and experience. And even having all of this does not guarantee stable operation or compliance with all BNCT requirements.
What am I getting at? I believe that BNCT should not yet be approached using the usual simple business model of: we issue a press release, we sign an MOU, we attract investors, we go public through an IPO, and so on. At present, BNCT is not a field in which everything can simply be bought with money: an accelerator, specialists, regulatory approvals. Of course, this may eventually change once BNCT is sufficiently well developed, but for now BNCT remains an extremely complex and science-intensive field, closely connected with fundamental research in physics, biology, chemistry and medicine, and requiring much more than investment alone. BNCT certainly requires substantial investment, but financial resources by themselves do not guarantee successful project implementation. What is also required is the necessary expertise, infrastructure, regulatory approvals, and demonstrated practical performance of the key technologies.
Therefore, our community needs to walk a fine line here and avoid both extremes. On the one hand, we should try not to scare away potential investors with the complexity of the technology and everything associated with it. Passionate teams of specialists who have devoted their lives to BNCT should have the opportunity to be found by equally passionate investors who fully understand the risks and uncertainties involved. On the other hand, we need to stay away from so-called “hype-driven promotion”, that is, creating false expectations among potential investors and patients by promoting weak, unrealistic projects that are unlikely to have sufficient financial or human resources to succeed.
Conclusion
What can we, as the international BNCT community in general and the CTF volunteer group in particular, do under these circumstances? The only thing we can do is work harder and better, filling our website and our accelerator projects table with the most up-to-date and accurate data possible! Based on everything said above, the most appropriate approach, in my view, is to rely primarily on the professional scientific community and on scientific publications. And this is where you, our readers, can help us. Therefore, the main thing I would like to ask of you in this article is this: if you notice any errors or inaccuracies in the table, or outdated links, please let us know through the feedback form or by email at news@isnct.net.
If you represent a team working on a BNCT accelerator and your project is not yet listed, please write to us and attach a list of your scientific publications and links to media articles about your project. These publications and links should make it clear what stage your project is at and which parameters have already been achieved or are planned for your accelerator (proton energy and current, neutron flux). If you have an operational proton accelerator worth several million dollars, several PhDs working on that accelerator, a dedicated facility, and authorization to generate neutrons, do you really not yet have a single scientific publication about it? In that case, perhaps it would make sense to write a scientific paper before writing to us.
Disclaimer
This article contains the author’s opinion, which may not coincide with that of the editorial team and may involve a conflict of interest.