Abstact

The principle of personalized medicine requires the availability of theranostic radionuclides. These radionuclides play a paramount role in diagnosis and therapy of cancer. As true theranostic pairs the radionuclides ^43/44Sc-⁴⁷Sc and ^61/64Cu-⁶⁷Cu are considered. Furthermore, new production routes for radionuclides that are in high demand or very rare such as ⁹⁹Mo or ²²⁵Ac are required.

A very interesting, relatively unexplored option for the large scale production of medical radionuclides is the use of photonuclear reactions. To this end, an energetic and intense beam delivered by an electron accelerator is directed at a converter target to produce Bremsstrahlung. The high-energy Bremsstrahlung can be used to irradiate a stack of production targets and produce large amounts of relevant radionuclides. In my lecture I will highlight the advantages of this technology and present possible solutions to specific problems associated with its use. Irradiation yields were calculated using publicly available nuclear codes under modern-day, realistic assumptions concerning beam intensities and converter technology. Furthermore, I will give some insights into radiochemical separation procedures that are required to extract the desired radionuclides from large amounts of target material.

Biography

Prof. Andreas Türler is the section leader of the Laboratory of Radiochemistry at PSI (LRC) and the Professor of radiochemistry at University of Bern, Switzerland. He received his Ph.D from the University of Bern in 1989. He did his postdoctoral research in Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA. He was the full Professor of radiochemistry at Technical University Munich, Germany during 2001 to 2009 then the full Professor of radiochemistry at University of Bern as well as the leader of the Laboratory of Radiochemistry at PSI (LRC). His research has focused on the production of rare medical radionuclides such as ²²⁵Ac and the chemistry of heavy elements. Besides, the research in the Türler group also covers the reconstruction of palaeoclimate and historic air pollution from ice cores drilled at high-altitude glaciers, investigation of the physiochemical interaction of trace gases with surfaces in the atmosphere, study of the radionuclide inventory in beam targets of large scale irradiation facilities, and the development of measurement techniques of environmental radionuclides in geoscientific research.