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

位于纽瓦克的新泽西州立大学罗格斯大学因开发基于激光的台式放射性碳分析仪而获奖，该系统用于检测极少量的碳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、碳测年和环境监测尤其重要。在制药领域，使用标记药物的非治疗微量剂量来安全地获得新药的药代动力学信息的微给药方法将受益于开发的仪器，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二氧化碳的连续流动，因此以前不可能的连续空气或土壤气体监测将变得可行，并允许对生物圈中的化石燃料碳进行更可靠的监测。对仪器开发项目来说，重要的是与广泛的用户社区和潜在的商业伙伴进行接触。利用在美国国家科学基金会I-CORPS项目中学到的方法，这个过渡性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。纽瓦克罗格斯大学高度多元化的学生群体将接触到可能影响他们职业决策的项目；合格的学生将参与开发项目。技术转移的成功将使更广泛的科学事业受益，因为它说明了基础物理研究在解决社会问题方面的价值。将为技术转让和大规模商业化寻求政府和私营部门的资金。放射性碳或碳14 （C-14）作为示踪剂的使用在许多科学领域被广泛接受。因为它是生命系统的“天然”标签，所以经常用于曾经的生命样本的碳定年，也用于追踪大气/生物圈系统中的碳。14C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。量化碳-14的传统仪器系统仍然依赖于对核衰变事件的检测，这是一个效率极低的过程，需要使用高水平的放射性、大样本、长计数时间，或者两者的某种组合。对于低剂量和小样本示踪剂研究、长期代谢研究、药物传播研究和环境监测，需要大大提高灵敏度，现在只有通过大型集中式粒子加速器技术才能实现。在本项目中开发的基于激光的仪器可以提供所需的高灵敏度，并且具有简单的辐射计数，在实验室技术人员能够使用的台式分析仪中。如此高的灵敏度将降低与药物代谢研究相关的成本，并允许在很少的辐射照射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，从而允许该技术的广泛使用和商业化。

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.