The use of radionuclides has become more and more common in the diagnosis and therapy of cancer. Targeted radionuclide diagnostics and therapy based on the combination of appropriate radionuclides with selective delivery systems (e.g. antibody, peptides etc.) maximizes precision of the imaging as well as minimizes the damage of healthy tissues during therapy. Furthermore, based on imaging (tumor sizes and locations), appropriate therapeutic radionuclides emitting alpha, beta- particles or auger electrons can be utilized. After production, in most cases, medical radionuclides need to be isolated from the target material and preconditioned for further radiopharmaceutical application. Appropriate bifunctional chelator systems should be in place to effectively attach some of the radionuclides (e.g. radiometals) to biomolecules. Several examples of production strategies of medical radionuclides with relation to TRIUMF facilities will be presented.
Dr. Valery Radchenko is a research scientist at TRIUMF and Adjunct professor at UBC Chemistry with a primary research focus on production and application of therapeutic radionuclides for Targeted Radionuclide Therapy (TRT). Dr. Radchenko is a radiochemist by training, and graduated from Saint-Petersburg State Technical University (Russian Federation) in collaboration with Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna (Russian Federation). He received his PhD from Johannes-Gutenberg University Mainz (Germany) in 2013 with a thesis focused on design of production of promising radionuclide for immuno-PET: 90Nb. In realizing the potential of targeted therapy, Dr. Radchenko pursued a postdoctoral position at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico, USA, where he worked as a part of tri-lab effort on production of 225Ac from spallation of thorium with high energy protons. In addition to 225Ac production, he also worked on other efforts including extraction of valuable medical radionuclides from irradiated thorium targets, such as 223/224/225Ra, 230Pa, 103Ru/103mRh and 111Ag, while also testing production of alternative candidates for low energy (≤ 35 MeV) slot at LANL Isotopes Production Facility (44Ti/44Sc and 119Sb). To date, Valery has published over 40 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals and was guest editor on special issue on 225A for Journal of Current Radiopharmaceuticals and currently guest editor on the special issue on Auger Emitters in Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Biology.