Jacksonville, Fla.-based Haskell Co. has been selected by Advanced Particle Therapy LLC and Scripps Health to provide design/build services for the Scripps Proton Therapy Center to be located in San Diego.

The cutting-edge outpatient cancer treatment facility will feature 102,000 sq ft of administrative and treatment area and will include one proton particle beam accelerator Cyclotron, two fixed-beam rooms and three rotational beam gantries.

This equipment will be provided by Varian Medical Systems, the recognized world leader in radiation oncology devices. Proton treatment is the favored method of treating certain types of tumors, such as prostate, brain and pediatric cancers, without severely damaging the surrounding healthy tissues.

The $185-million project will be built on a seven-acre site in the Carroll Canyon area of Mira Mesa. Haskell Design-Build is also the architect.

�With only seven Proton Treatment Centers operating in the U.S., we are honored to work with Scripps and Haskell to create a state-of-the-art facility that will treat patients in the greater San Diego and California region,� says Jeffrey Bordok, president and CEO of Advanced Particle Therapy LLC, a company that teams with clients seeking a complete turnkey solution to the implementation of a particle therapy cancer treatment center.

Construction on the Scripps Proton Therapy Center will begin this month and the first patient treatment is expected to occur in February 2013. Upon completion, the Scripps Proton Therapy Center will be operated by Scripps, under the medical direction of the Scripps Clinic Medical Group, and will treat approximately 2,400 patients annually.

Signet Development will serve as the lead developer for the Scripps Proton Therapy Center and Haskell has been selected to provide the design/build services for the space that will house the state-of-the-art equipment, which is custom designed and must be constructed to meet very tight tolerance requirements for proper installation.

�Our unique integrated design/build capabilities allow us to provide the needed expertise to create the space and design work for this highly-specialized treatment center,� says Paul Tyler, president of Haskell�s Commercial Group. �We are honored to work with the partners in this project and look forward to building the Scripps Proton Therapy Center to better serve patients in the greater California area.�

Proton treatment is made possible by a Varian 250 MeV Superconducting Cyclotron. Varian�s 250 MeV cyclotron is proven technology designed for high-efficiency, low-energy consumption, high reliability and modern treatment features such as pencil beam scanning, sometimes referred to as spot scanning, which enables beam intensity modulation. Intensity-modulated proton therapy makes it possible to shape the dose distribution very precisely in order to concentrate the does on the targeted tumor while sparing normal, healthy tissues.

Through ionization, the Cyclotron separates a hydrogen atom�s protons from its electrons and, by use of electric and magnetic fields, accelerates at near light speed the proton beam into treatment rooms. The center will include five treatment rooms, two of which will provide a fixed beam and three of which will include a rotational beam. Each room will contain highly sophisticated electromagnet beam directional equipment, weighing 150 tons per piece, to deliver the proton beam to the patient. Additional space at the proton treatment center will include clinical diagnostic and treatment preparation rooms as well as medical office space and a reception area.