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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.
H. Kawashima, S. Sengoku, K. Uehara, H. Tamai, T. Shoji, H. Ogawa, T. Shibata, M. Yamamoto, Y. Miura, Y. Kusama, H. Kimura, H. Amemiya, Y. Sadamoto, Y. Nagashima
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 49 | Number 2 | February 2006 | Pages 168-186
Technical Paper | JFT-2M Tokamak | dx.doi.org/10.13182/FST06-A1093
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Experimental efforts on JFT-2M have been devoted to understanding the scrape-off-layer (SOL)/divertor plasmas and to investigating power and particle control by boundary plasma modification. Starting in 1985, an open divertor configuration was adopted for the first decade of the JFT-2M experiments. The characteristics of SOL/divertor plasmas such as in/out asymmetry for divertor plasmas, heat and particle diffusivities, and SOL current during an edge-localized-mode event were identified. The power and particle flux was successfully handled by active control methods such as local pumping, boundary plasma ergodization, divertor biasing, electron cyclotron wave edge heating, and fueling optimization. In 1995, to improve the power and particle control capability of the divertor, the JFT-2M divertor was modified to have a closed configuration, which demonstrated the baffling effects with its narrower divertor throat. A dense and cold divertor state (nediv = 4 × 1019 m-3 and Tediv = 4 eV), compatible with improved confinement modes (e.g., H-mode), was realized with strong gas puffing in a closed configuration. Edge plasma fluctuations related to the H-mode physics were identified by an electrostatic probe and magnetic measurements. These are reviewed in this paper.