KENNEWICK -- He's walked with Martin Luther King Junior, ran for the White House, and now he's an advocate for medical research.

Reverend Jesse Jackson was in the Tri Cities, Wednesday, trumpeting technology that some promise could help win a fight against cancer and HIV.

Jackson celebrated with the first company in the nation to produce medical isotopes, the Advanced Medical Isotope Corporation (AMIC).

Wednesday was the ribbon cutting for the building scientists will use.

"Insurance will not save your life, research will save your life," Reverend Jesse Jackson said.

Jackson said nearly 500,000 people die from cancer.

That's why the outspoken advocate called medical isotopes "the answer to cancer."

And when Reverend Jesse Jackson speaks, people listen.

"And the cure will save your life and we should not spare any scientific endeavor in that pursuit," Jackson said.

"My sister had breast cancer and I tried to convince her to go to France for medical isotope therapy but there's so little doctors know in the U.S." medical isotope supporter and former

for Carol Moser, the chance to bring the breakthrough technology is finally becoming real.

She worked to save Fast Flux Test Facility when scientists were trying to bring medical isotopes here

Isotopes can be used to help diagnose cancerous tumors and heart problems, and work by killing malignant cells in your body.

"Isotopes are used successfully in other countries so we need that kind of ability to do it here in the Tri Cities," Moser said.

"We are so dependent upon isotopes," Jackson said.

Right now, 90 percent of medical isotopes are created outside of the U.S.

Now AMIC is the only company in the nation has the technology to produce the isotopes, right here in Kennewick.

"I think this town has the right spirit, the right ideas and the right scientists," Jackson said.

AMIC dedicated the building to one man working on this research, Jim Madson.

AMIC is already using the isotopes in a contract with KADLEC Medical Center.

The building was placed specifically next to the Kennewick airport to fly the isotopes to patients outside the area.

Medical isotopes are complex to understand, so experts opened up symposium on the topic to the public at the Three Rivers Convention Center.

Speakers included researchers from the Cadwell Laboratories, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, Missouri Research Reactor, Office of National Isotope Programs, Washington State University, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Cell Therapuetics, and Rev. Jackson for the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.