The history of CNAO

The history of the National Center for Oncological Hadrontherapy began with the publication, in May 1991 , of the report ” For a teletherapy center with hadrons ” signed by Ugo Amaldi and Giampiero Tosi . At that time Giampiero Tosi was in charge of Niguarda’s health physics and was the best known Italian medical physicist; Ugo Amaldi, physicist of particles and accelerators, already a member for fifteen years at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, was at the time at CERN in Geneva where he directed a collaboration of about five hundred physicists, for the construction and use of one of the four great experiments of the LEP accelerator.
 
The 1991 publication aroused the interest of Nicola Cabibbo, then President of INFN. So in 1992 a first grant was given to start the study of a new accelerator that was able to accelerate both protons and light ions to be used in the new therapy of deep tumors. The INFN-funded study was called ATER, an abbreviation of “AdroTERapia”, the word coined by Amaldi for this new type of advanced radiotherapy.
 
 
In 1992, to raise the funds and personnel necessary for the design of the Center, the TERA Foundation was created with headquarters in Novara. In 18 years, more than one hundred and seventy physicists, engineers, computer scientists and technicians have been either employees or fellows of TERA.
Between 1992 and 2002, three complete drawings of the center were completed, based on synchrotrons of different characteristics, suitable for possible realization first in Novara (in the years 1993-1995) and then in Milan, near the Mirasole Abbey (1996 -1999). But, after very promising beginnings, the most diverse obstacles prevented the realization of these projects.
In 1995, in order to develop hadrontherapy in Europe and not only in Italy, Amaldi convinced the CERN management of the opportunity to design, at a European level, a synchrotron for carbon ions and protons optimized for therapy. This study was called Proton Ion Medical Machine Study (PIMMS) and was completed in 2000 and TERA produced a more compact version called PIMMS / TERA which then evolved into the CNAO version definitively made in Pavia.
Umberto Veronesi , appointed Minister of Health in May 2000, decided to finance the construction of the CNAO, which he had known well since 1992. In the spring of 2001, the CNAO Foundation was created.. The newly appointed Minister Gerolamo Sirchia set up a Commission to analyze the project and, as soon as a positive opinion was issued, in November 2001 he set up the Council. Erminio Borloni , was appointed President of the Foundation, which he led without interruption until December 2018.