Resources
The Nuclear Medicine Program has dedicated hot cells for radioisotope processing and approved procedures and laboratories and facilities available for radiochemistry, pharmaceutical synthesis and analytical studies. Available instrumentation includes multichannel analyzers, a variety of high performance liquid chromatographs, and other laboratory instrumentation. Approved procedures and facilities are also available for testing of targets for reactor irradiation.
Facilities are available for housing small rodents and for conducting injections and tissue distribution animal experiments, which are approved by the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International (AAALAC). All animal experiments are conducted under procedures approved by the ORNL “Animal Care and Use Committee.”
The ORNL High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) has the highest thermal neutron flux available in the western world with versatile in core facilities available for high flux irradiation of samples from time periods as short as minutes up to a full operating cycle (22-24 days). The high flux hydraulic tube positions are given priority for the production of medical radioisotopes. Major required maintenance and upgrades of the HFIR were conducted in 2001, which ensure continued operation of this reactor with increased capabilities well into this century. The Drug Master Files (DMF) has been registered with the FDA, and a Current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) program is being implemented at ORNL for the tungsten-188/rhenium-188 generator system.
A variety of other resources at ORNL are available in support of this program,
including target chemical processing and fabrication facilities and extensive
nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopic, mass spectrometry and other
analytical capabilities.
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Figure 1.The ORNL HIgh Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) has the highest thermal flux
in the world for medical radioisotope production. |
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Figure 2. High level hot cells are available for target processing. |
