Novel Production Methods of Medical Isotopes: Securing Canada's Supply Chain

医用同位素的新生产方法：确保加拿大供应链的安全

• 批准号: RGPIN-2016-03972
• 负责人: Hoehr, Cornelia
• 金额: $ 1.6万
• 依托单位: TRIUMF
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2019-01-01 至 2020-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=678819
• 关键词: Novel; Production; Methods; Medical; Isotopes

Radioisotopes form the backbone of all nuclear imaging and therapeutic nuclear medicine applications. Historically, Canada has played a key role in its production and supply at home as well as internationally. The most common nuclear imaging isotope, Tc-99m, is used on 75,000 patients daily. Around 40% of the world's supply of Tc-99m is being produced at the nuclear reactor in Chalk River, Ontario. The recent down time of the Canadian reactor with the three other facilities that together supply more than 90% of the global demand caused a worldwide isotope crisis' - delaying imaging and treatment of patients with a variety of illnesses. To avoid this scenario in the future, the Canadian government asked the Canadian research community to investigate alternative isotope production. Several solutions are possible and the route via low-energy cyclotrons (< 30 MeV), led by TRIUMF in Vancouver, is very promising and received the NSERC Brockhouse Award in 2015. Numerous new cyclotron facilities have now been funded and built across Canada, making it possible to supply local research communities with isotopes.****The proposed research program taps into the increasing availability of medical cyclotrons and investigates the targets used to make these isotopes. In particular it looks at why the radioisotopic yield of liquid and gas targets is often far below the theoretically achievable yield. We hypothesize that transport phenomena occurring in the liquid and gas are affecting the recoverable yield. The program is therefore investigating the transport phenomena occurring in liquid and gas targets under proton bombardment via simulation and experiment. This problem falls into the broad class of fluid-solid interaction problems found within the transport phenomena literature. What makes this problem particularly difficult is that there is a two-way coupling between the reaction rates and the properties of the fluid. The vision of the proposed program is to develop new production solutions for existing medical isotopes in higher quantities as well as to enable the production of new and emerging isotopes.********

放射性同位素构成了所有核成像和治疗性核医学应用的支柱。从历史上看，加拿大在其国内和国际的生产和供应中发挥了关键作用。最常见的核素核素-99m每天在7.5万名患者身上使用。世界上约40%的Tc-99m供应是由安大略省Chalk River的核反应堆生产的。最近，加拿大反应堆和其他三个设施的停机时间导致了一场全球性的同位素危机，延误了对各种疾病患者的成像和治疗。这三个设施总共供应了全球90%以上的需求。为了避免未来出现这种情况，加拿大政府要求加拿大研究界调查替代同位素的生产。有几种解决方案是可能的，温哥华TRIUMF牵头的低能量回旋加速器(&lt；30 MeV)路线非常有希望，并在2015年获得了NSERC布罗克豪斯奖。加拿大各地现在已经资助和建造了许多新的回旋加速器设施，使向当地研究社区提供同位素成为可能。*拟议的研究计划利用越来越多的医用回旋加速器，并调查用于制造这些同位素的靶标。特别是，它着眼于为什么液体和气体靶的放射性同位素产额往往远远低于理论上可以达到的产额。我们假设，液体和气体中发生的输运现象正在影响可采收率。因此，该计划正在通过模拟和实验来研究质子轰击下液体和气体目标中发生的输运现象。这个问题属于在传输现象文献中发现的流固相互作用问题的广泛类别。使这个问题特别困难的是，在反应速度和流体性质之间存在双向耦合。拟议计划的愿景是为更大数量的现有医用同位素开发新的生产解决方案，并使新的和新兴的同位素能够生产。