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Researchers report fastest purification of astatine-211 needed for targeted cancer therapy
Astatine-211 recovery from bismuth metal using a chromatography system. Unlike bismuth, astatine-211 forms chemical bonds with ketones.
In a recent study, Texas A&M University researchers have described a new process to purify astatine-211, a promising radioactive isotope for targeted cancer treatment. Unlike other elaborate purification methods, their technique can extract astatine-211 from bismuth in minutes rather than hours, which can greatly reduce the time between production and delivery to the patient.
“Astatine-211 is currently under evaluation as a cancer therapeutic in clinical trials. But the problem is that the supply chain for this element is very limited because only a few places worldwide can make it,” said Jonathan Burns, research scientist in the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station’s Nuclear Engineering and Science Center. “Texas A&M University is one of a handful of places in the world that can make astatine-211, and we have delineated a rapid astatine-211 separation process that increases the usable quantity of this isotope for research and therapeutic purposes.”
The researchers added that this separation method will bring Texas A&M one step closer to being able to provide astatine-211 for distribution through the Department of Energy’s Isotope Program’s National Isotope Development Center as part of the University Isotope Network.
Details on the chemical reaction to purify astatine-211 are in the journal Separation and Purification Technology.
K. Hoshino, T. Yamamoto, H. Tamai, K. Ohasa, H. Kawashima, Y. Miura, T. Ogawa, T. Shoji, T. Shibata, K. Kikuchi, M. Sawahata, K. Takahashi
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 49 | Number 2 | February 2006 | Pages 139-167
Technical Paper | JFT-2M Tokamak | dx.doi.org/10.13182/FST06-A1092
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We briefly present the experimental results obtained using the various heating and current drive systems, such as electron cyclotron heating, fast wave, lower hybrid wave, ion cyclotron range of frequency, neutral beam injection heating, or the external coil systems or the divertor bias system developed in JFT-2M from the viewpoint of the active control of the tokamak plasma. The features and design concepts of each system are described briefly, as we had to develop such systems to carry out the physical research. The experimental findings in plasma heating, current drive, and advanced plasma control in the JFT-2M tokamak contributed to the design and experiments in the larger tokamaks and to ITER.