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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.
R. W. Harvey, A. P. Smirnov, E. Nelson-Melby, G. Taylor, S. Coda, A. K. Ram
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 53 | Number 1 | January 2008 | Pages 237-245
Technical Paper | Special Issue on Electron Cyclotron Wave Physics, Technology, and Applications - Part 2 | dx.doi.org/10.13182/FST08-A1668
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In overdense plasma for which the plasma frequency exceeds the cyclotron frequency, X-mode, near-perpendicular cyclotron emission does not propagate to the outboard plasma edge. However, under these conditions it remains possible for electron Bernstein waves (EBWs) to transmit emitted radiation from central plasma to the plasma exterior via a mode conversion to electromagnetic waves near the plasma edge. GENRAY is an all-frequencies, three-dimensional ray-tracing code and also calculates EBW emission (EBWE) from thermal or nonthermal relativistic distributions. The numerical methods are based on the earlier HORACE circular plasma code (R.W. Harvey et al., Proc. 7th Joint Workshop and International Atomic Energy Agency Technical Committee Meeting on Electron Cyclotron Emission and Electron Cyclotron Resonance Heating, Hefei, China, 1989), generalized to noncircular plasmas and to electromagnetic EBWs, including a parallel refractive index greater than 1. Emission and absorption are calculated on an array of points along EBW rays emanating from the antenna, and the radiation transport equation is backsolved along the EBW rays to the antenna. Hot plasma dispersion is used along with a relativistic calculation of the thermal or nonthermal emission and absorption. This paper describes the calculation and reports new results for nonthermal EBWE. Along with detailed numerical analysis, EBWE can be used to measure both thermal and nonthermal properties of the electron distribution function.
