Serva Energy teams with research reactor to produce cancer-fighting Ac-225

June 27, 2023, 7:00AMNuclear News

Serva Energy has developed a research reactor–based method of actinium-225 production, the company announced on June 22, saying it “marks the first time a commercial entity has employed a conventional nuclear reactor to produce the lifesaving isotope—allowing for dozens of existing research reactors around the world to collaborate with Serva on increasing production of Actinium-225 without huge capital investments or delays for construction.”

World Astatine Community expands access to cancer-fighting At-211

June 20, 2023, 12:00PMNuclear News
Representatives from the U.S., EU, and Japan announce the WAC at the 12th International Symposium for Targeted Alpha Therapy. (Photo: NIDC)

The World Astatine Community (WAC) was formed earlier this year during the 12th International Symposium for Targeted Alpha Therapy by representatives from the United States, Japan, and the European Union to share astatine production technology and advance science and health care. The National Isotope Development Center (NIDC), which is managed by the Department of Energy’s Isotope Program (DOE-IP), announced the news on June 15 and explained how the United States plans to help expand the global supply of astatine-211.

NorthStar marks milestone in non-uranium production of Mo-99

January 12, 2023, 12:02PMNuclear News
IBA Rhodotron TT300-HE (high energy) electron accelerator. (Photo: Business Wire)

Nuclear medicine company NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes announced that it has successfully produced molybdenum-99 at its recently completed accelerator production facility at its Beloit, Wis., campus. According to NorthStar, the event marks a major milestone in advancing the company’s proprietary electron accelerator technology for the non-uranium–based production of the critical medical radioisotope.

BWXT Medical submits Tc-99m generator application to FDA

September 14, 2022, 3:02PMNuclear News

BWXT Medical has submitted a new drug application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to request approval of its technetium-99m generator for medical imaging. A daughter isotope of molybdenum-99, Tc-99m is used in more than 40 million diagnostic procedures annually. BWXT Medical is a subsidiary of Lynchburg, Va.-based BWX Technologies.

Astatine-211 targets blood-borne cancers in Seattle clinical trials

September 13, 2022, 9:30AMNuclear News
A clinical dose of At-211 is prepared at the University of Washington for use in a Fred Hutchison Cancer Center clinical trial. (Photo: UW/Don Hamlin)

Scientists in the Departments of Radiation Oncology and Medicine at the University of Washington (UW) and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center (Fred Hutch) are directly targeting cancerous cells traveling through patients’ bloodstreams with diseases such as leukemia and lymphoma using an intravenous injection of the radioactive isotope astatine-211 (At-211). The work, its challenges, and its promise were described in a recent news release from the National Isotope Development Center (NIDC), which is managed by the Department of Energy’s Isotope Program.

Webinar: International isotope supply chain needs coordination, not complacency

June 1, 2022, 9:30AMNuclear News

Accelerators and other new facilities are producing an increasing share of the radioisotopes that were once sourced solely from a handful of research reactors around the globe; demand for alpha-emitters is increasing; and the need for an ensured supply of both radioactive and stable isotopes is now heightened as many countries seek an alternative to Russian isotopes. Those are just a few of the key points that emerged from a recent webinar, “Demand and Supply of Isotopes Around the World: From Diverse Perspectives,” organized by the World Council of Isotopes, along with the Sylvia Fedoruk Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation and the University of Saskatchewan, the hosts of the upcoming 11th International Conference on Isotopes (11ICI).

DOE accelerates evaluation of new medical radioisotopes

April 13, 2022, 12:00PMNuclear News

The Department of Energy announced on April 11 that it will distribute $1 million to three awardees to evaluate newly developed radioisotopes for potential therapeutic use in preclinical and clinical trials. The funding is provided by the DOE Isotope Program, which produces isotopes for use in science, medicine, and industry that would otherwise be unavailable or in short supply.

Texas A&M to lead isotope R&D traineeship program

December 9, 2021, 9:31AMNuclear News

The Department of Energy is dedicating $2 million to the establishment of a first-of-its-kind program to train undergraduate and graduate students in isotope research and development, production, and processing. Texas A&M University will serve as the Isotope Traineeship Coordination (ITC) site, collaborating with a team of 14 colleges and universities and three national laboratories: Argonne National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Senators probe nuclear priorities: HALEU, hydrogen, reactor siting, and more

November 5, 2021, 9:29AMNuclear News
From left, Shannon Bragg-Sitton, Paul Chodak, and Michael J. Guastella appear before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on November 4.

As Congress awaited key votes yesterday on spending bills that include production tax credits for at-risk plants and a new amendment adding $500 million in supplemental funding over five years to increase the availability of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU), the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a Full Committee Hearing On Potential Non-Electric Applications Of Civilian Nuclear Energy. Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.V.), chairman of the committee, emphasized that “advanced nuclear reactors hold enormous potential to provide opportunity to communities across the country with zero-emission baseload power” and made it clear he expects new reactors to replace retiring coal plants in his home state of West Virginia.

Speaking before the committee were Shannon Bragg-Sitton of Idaho National Laboratory, Paul Chodak III of American Electric Power, and Michael J. Guastella of the Council of Radionuclides and Radiopharmaceuticals.

PRISMAP: A European network for medical radioisotope production and research

October 1, 2021, 12:00PMNuclear News
A conceptual image of collaboration across Europe. (Image: PRISMAP/SCIPROM)

Only a few of the more than 3,000 radioisotopes that scientists have synthesized in the laboratory are regularly used in diagnostic or therapeutic medicine. One significant barrier to the development of new medical radioisotopes is the difficulty of gaining access to radionuclides during the early stages of development and research. PRISMAP is a new medical radionuclide program designed to streamline that access for medical research in the European Union and the United Kingdom.

An inventive solution speeds up production of actinium-225

August 5, 2021, 12:00PMNuclear News
Chemist Kevin Gaddis has adapted components of a high-pressure ion chromatography system to withstand the extreme conditions of a hot cell. (Photo: ORNL/Carlos Jones)

An Oak Ridge National Laboratory researcher has built a device that can speed up the separation of the medical radioisotope actinium-225 from irradiated thorium targets and withstand the high-radiation environment of a hot cell. In July, ORNL announced that Kevin Gaddis, a chemistry technician at the lab, had built and tested a prototype and was working to secure a patent for a device that cut separations time by 75 percent.

Clinical trial funding to expand the radioisotope medicine chest

June 2, 2021, 7:06AMNuclear News

The Department of Energy is providing up to $2 million in fiscal year 2022 to fund university and national laboratory studies into the use of novel, medically relevant isotopes for use in pre-clinical and clinical medical trials, the DOE’s Office of Science announced on June 1.

TerraPower looks to turn DOE’s waste uranium into actinium-225

August 5, 2020, 10:12AMAround the Web

This vial contains traces of actinium within a mixture of thorium and uranium. Photo: Isotek

An article recently published in Chemical & Engineering News describes TerraPower’s efforts to extract actinium-225, a radioisotope with therapeutic potential, from highly radioactive uranium-233 owned by the Department of Energy and slated for disposal. While others are working to ramp up production of Ac-225 by using a linear accelerator or cyclotron, TerraPower hopes to harvest between 200,000 and 600,000 doses a year from U-233 to increase the global supply.

Mo-99 supply put at risk by COVID-19 pandemic

April 7, 2020, 10:18AMNuclear News

The U.S. healthcare industry is warning that the COVID-19 pandemic may threaten supplies of the medical radioisotope molybdenum-99, whose decay product, technetium-99m, is considered the workhorse isotope in nuclear medicine for diagnostic imaging. The online magazine Radiology Business recently reported that the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC) alerted its members on April 1 that it is monitoring supply shortages of Mo-99 “more closely than ever” during the pandemic.