The next ion medical machine study at CERN: Towards a next generation cancer research and therapy facility with ion beams

Cancer therapy with ions has several advantages over X- ray and proton therapy, but its diffusion remains limited primarily because of the size and cost of the accelerator. To develop technologies that might improve performance and reduce accelerator cost with respect to present facilities, CERN has recently launched the Next Ion Medical Ma-chine Study (NIMMS), leveraging CERN expertise in accelerator fields to disseminate technologies developed for basic science. A perspective user and key partner of NIMMS is the SEEIIST (South East European International Institute for Sustainable Technologies), established to build in the region an innovative facility for combined cancer therapy and biomedical research with ion beams.