The Japan Connection
In
1981 Lucas’ energy and enthusiasm played a major role in our acquisition of the
first "Baby Cyclotron" outside Japan; it produced positron emitters from the
atoms of O, N, C and F. This enabled us to do a wide range of innovative PET
studies on the metabolism and chemotherapy of brain tumors, on epilepsy,
migraine, psychoses, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases and stroke. Ernst
Meyer’s method to display cerebral "activation" by PET – focal increase in blood
flow with neuronal stimulation – led to exciting research on brain mapping by
the neuropsychologists at the MNI. Negotiations for the Baby Cyclotron took our
research team on
several occasions to Tokyo and to the north island of Hokkaido to visit the Japan Steel Works at Muroran. We had stopovers in the exotic mountainous countryside with its volcanic hot springs, as in Noboribetsu where the owner of a luxury hotel, who had been a schoolmate of Lucas, treated us like visiting royalty. In the Cone Laboratory Lucas trained more than seventy research fellows from Japan; he not only supervised their professional work but gave them and their families much moral support during their stay in Canada. The annual "pool party" arranged by Lucas and his wife Jeanine for the staff of the research laboratories became legendary. Many went on to become distinguished chiefs of academic departments and directors of hospitals throughout Japan, making up a "Japan Neuro Club".
Achievements
Lucas became a Canadian citizen in 1967. He advanced to Assistant Professor in 1968 and Professor in 1980 in the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at McGill, Director of the Neuroisotope Laboratory for Brain Scanning at the MNH from 1973, Chairman, Radiation Safety Committee of the MNI from 1979, and Co-Director of the Cone Laboratory for Neurosurgical Research at the MNI in 1984.
Lucas was very generous to work with, very willing to discuss and to share his knowledge with others. Christopher Thompson, his close colleague for many years, tells how Lucas and he brought the Brookhaven scanner from Long Island to
Montreal
in the back of a blue van, driving through a blinding snowstorm, successfully
passing through customs despite their "atomic" cargo. He noted that Lucas would
deliberately arrange a break when he was flying through Boston so that he might
visit Logan airport’s famous oyster bar.Lucas was a member of many medical associations, including the Canadian Neurosurgical Society, Canadian Association of Nuclear Medicine, and a certified specialist in nuclear medicine of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Quebec and of the American Board of Nuclear Medicine. He was elected a senior
Lucas Yamamotom
William Feindel and President Kashihara of Japan
Stell Works inaugurating the Baby Cyclotron (1981).