Starts 4 Nov 2026 16:00
Ends 4 Nov 2026 17:30
Central European Time
ICTP Colloquium: Development of Novel Radionuclides for New Emerging Medical Applications
Budinich Lecture Hall (Leonardo Building) and via streaming
Syed M. Qaim
(Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine, Germany)
Syed Muhammad Qaim is a retired Professor at the Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany. He has been engaged in nuclear research for more than 60 years, working in the areas of fundamental nuclear chemistry, nuclear data for applications and medical radionuclides. He has published more than 430 papers, written several books and has given invited talks at more than 100 international conferences. Besides his normal research and teaching duties, he has been actively engaged in the propagation of science through his long associations with the international bodies OECD-NEA (Paris), IAEA (Vienna) and ICTP (Trieste). He has also contributed appreciably to the development of science in the Third World Countries. For his sustained seminal contributions he received various types of awards and honours in about 10 countries of the world.
Absract:
The production technology of reactor- and cyclotron-based radionuclides, routinely used in patient care, encompassing about 60 million cases worldwide per year, is generally well established. However, to meet demands of some new emerging medical applications, such as bimodal imaging, theranostic approach or radioimmunotherapy, novel radionuclides with versatile labelling chemistry are needed. In great demand are presently longer-lived non-standard positron emitters for diagnosis and low-energy highly-ionising β-- and α-particle emitters for therapy Special interest lies presently in the radionuclide targeted therapy. This talk gives an overview of new research trends in production of novel medical radionuclides. The relevant areas of investigation include nuclear data, high current irradiation technology, chemical processing and quality assurance of the radioactive product. A few examples from each area will be given, based on the use of the following existing and emerging technical facilities.
- Research reactors. The aim is to produce several therapeutic radionuclides with high specific activity (e.g. 47Sc, 153Sm, 161Tb, etc.). Even power reactors are being considered.
- Small medical cyclotrons (E<20 MeV). Extensive new installations are taking place worldwide. Efforts are underway to produce non-standard positron emitters (e.g. 64Cu, 68Ga, 86Y, 89Zr) at those cyclotrons using isotopically highly-enriched materials and sophisticated targetry.
- Medium-sized cyclotrons. High-intensity α-particle beams are being developed, and work is in progress to produce large quantities of 211At for α-therapy,
- Intermediate energy cyclotrons/accelerators. Use of (p,x) reactions is being intensified to produce several radionuclides (e.g. 67Cu,225Ac, etc.); also (p,spall) process in combination with on-line mass separation is occasionally used (e.g. 152Tb). Another approach is to generate d(Be) fast neutrons and use them to induce (n,2n) or (n,xp) reactions to produce therapeutic radionuclides (e.g. 225Ac, 67Cu, etc.)
- LINACs. High-intensity electron beams are being developed to generate high energy photons to induce (γ,n) reaction products, e.g. 99Mo/99mTc and 225Ra/225Ac) or (γ,p) reaction products (e.g. 47Sc and 67Cu).
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Refreshments will be served in the lobby of the Leonardo Building after the talk.
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The event will be livetreamed at:
ictp.it/livestream
Refreshments will be served in the lobby of the Leonardo Building after the talk.
- - -
The event will be livetreamed at:
ictp.it/livestream