1955
In May 1955, the Special Training Division offered the first special basic radioisotope course for foreign nationals as part of President Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace program, established to share the peaceful atom with other countries.
With grants from the National Science Foundation, ORINS' Special Training Division began offering the Summer Institute for Secondary-School Teachers in August 1955. Approximately 48 teachers attended that first year.
At the annual meeting of the ORINS Council in 1955, the decision was made to lease land in Oak Ridge, with an option to buy, for the purpose of building permanent headquarters.
In 1955, the Medical Division's Teletherapy Evaluation Program received a kilocurie cesium-137 teletherapy machine. This device permitted irradiation of a specified area of diseased tissue with less harm to healthy tissue. That same year, the Medical Division undertook the coordination of a new study--the methods of measuring the amount of radioiodine absorbed by the human thyroid gland.
Photo, right: Charles G. Wilder, chairman of the ORINS Museum Division, stands beside one of the walkthrough, van-type mobile Atoms for Peace traveling exhibits that began touring the nation in the mid 1950s.