Death Notice: Retired USTUR director Tony James

Photo of anthony jamesDr. Anthony C. James, the recently retired director of the U.S. Transuranium and Uranium Registries at WSU Tri-cities, passed away Wednesday, July 20, 2011, in Seattle from cancer.

James was director of the USTUR – a program in the College of Pharmacy – from 2005 until he retired in July 2010. He had since returned to work there part-time.

James had been a researcher in radiation biology and health physics for almost 40 years. He had a doctorate degree in radiation biology and a bachelor’s degree in physics, both from the University of London.

The USTUR has been a WSU program since 1992 when the U.S. Department of Energy awarded a three-year grant to the College of Pharmacy to manage and operate the program, which was established in 1968 as the federal National Plutonium Registry.

The USTUR is a human tissue repository and research program in radiation health effects providing long-term followup of the effects on human tissues and organs of accidental internal ingestion of radioactive elements.

It continues to accept donations for research and since 1996, it also has housed and managed a collection of animal tissue specimens and data from government sponsored radiobiology studies performed at various national laboratories and universities since the 1940s.