IDBR : TYPE B Development of a Laser Based Benchtop Radiocarbon Analyzer

位于纽瓦克的新泽西的罗格斯州立大学因开发基于激光的台式放射性碳分析仪而获奖，该系统用于检测非常少量的碳14。 仪器开发项目的广泛影响是多种多样的，跨越许多领域：药物代谢分析，碳测年和环境监测特别重要。在制药领域，使用非治疗性痕量剂量的标记药物安全地获得新药药代动力学信息的微剂量方法将受益于所开发的仪器，这将降低成本，加快药物试验并使新药更安全。对于环境监测，由于分析仪可以容纳连续的二氧化碳流，因此迄今为止不可能的连续空气或土壤气体监测将变得可行，并且允许对生物圈中的化石燃料碳进行更稳健的监测。对仪器开发项目来说，重要的是与广泛的用户群体和潜在的商业伙伴进行外联。使用NSF I-CORPS计划中学到的方法，该桥接开发项目将通过私营部门的制造，销售和服务加速仪器的商业化。罗格斯大学在纽瓦克的高度多样化的学生团体将接触到可能影响他们的职业决定的项目;和合格的学生将参与发展项目。技术转让的成功将通过说明基础物理研究在解决社会问题方面的价值，使更广泛的科学事业受益。将寻求政府和私营部门的资金用于技术转让和大规模商业化。使用放射性碳或碳14（C-14）作为示踪剂在许多科学领域中被广泛接受。因为它是生命系统的“天然”标签，所以它经常用于对曾经的生命样品进行碳定年，也用于追踪大气/生物圈系统中的碳。14 C标记在药物开发和环境研究以及与代谢相关的基础研究中尤为重要。传统的仪器系统来量化C-14仍然依赖于核衰变事件的检测，这是一个非常低效的过程，需要使用高水平的放射性，大样本，长计数时间，或每一种的某种组合。 现在只有大型集中式粒子加速器技术才有可能大大提高灵敏度，这对于低剂量和小样品示踪剂研究、长期代谢研究、药物传播研究和环境监测都是必要的。本项目中开发的激光仪器可提供所需的高灵敏度，并具有简单的辐射计数，可在实验室技术人员能够使用的台式分析仪中使用。这种高灵敏度将降低与药物代谢研究相关的成本，并允许在几乎没有辐射暴露的情况下进行人体示踪剂测试。工程、算法和校准简化将提高精度和吞吐量，从而使该技术得到广泛使用和商业化。

An award is made to Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in Newark for the Development of a Laser Based Benchtop Radiocarbon Analyzer, a system to be used for the detection of very small quantities of Carbon 14. Broader impacts of the instrument development project are varied and span many areas: drug metabolism analysis, carbon dating, and environmental monitoring are particularly important. In the pharmaceutical area, microdosing methodology where non-therapeutic trace doses of labeled drugs are used to safely obtain pharmacokinetic information on new drugs will benefit from the developed instrument which will lower costs, speed up drug trials and make new drugs safer. For environmental monitoring, because the analyzer can accommodate a continuous flow of carbon dioxide, continuous air or soil gas monitoring heretofore impossible will become feasible and allow more robust monitoring of fossil fuel carbon in the biosphere. Important to the instrument development project is outreach to a broad user community and to potential commercial partners. Using methodology learned in the NSF I-CORPS program this bridging development project will expedite commercialization of the instrument via private sector manufacturing, sales and service. The highly diverse student body at Rutgers in Newark will be exposed to the project which may influence their career decisions; and qualified students will participate in development projects. Technology transfer success will benefit the wider scientific enterprise by illustrating the value of fundamental physical research in solving societal problems. Government and private sector funding will be sought for technology transfer and broad scale commercialization.The use of Radiocarbon or Carbon 14 (C-14) as a tracer is very widely accepted in many areas of science. Because it is a "natural" label of living systems it is often used for carbon dating of once living samples and also for tracing carbon in the atmosphere/biosphere system. Labeling with 14C is especially important in drug development and environmental studies as well as in basic research associated with metabolism. Traditional instrument systems to quantify C-14 still depend on the detection of a nuclear decay event, a highly inefficient process which requires the use of either high levels of radioactivity, large samples, long counting times, or some combination of each. Greatly enhanced sensitivity, now only possible with large centralized particle accelerator technology, is necessary for low dose and small sample tracer studies, for long-term metabolic studies, for drug dissemination studies and for environmental monitoring. The laser-based instrument to be developed in this project can provide the required high sensitivity, with the simplicity of radiation counting, in a benchtop analyzer capable of being used by a laboratory technician. Such high sensitivity will reduce the costs associated with drug metabolism studies and allow human tracer testing with little radiation exposure. Engineering, algorithm and calibration simplification will improve the precision and throughput allowing the widespread use and commercialization of the technology.