Making Fresh Radionuclides with Leftover Gamma Rays

Making Fresh Radionuclides with Leftover Gamma RaysPhotons in high-energy probe beams that pass through their intended target can be "reused" for making promising in nuclear medicine, new experiments show.By Charles Day R adioactive nuclides are often used in medicine, as their emissions provide a wide array of energetic particles that can help diagnose and treat diseases.However, a challenge is creating nuclides that are both medically useful and cost-effective.Now Mamad Eslami of the University of York in the UK and his collaborators have demonstrated a new and efficient way to make radionuclides using leftover gamma rays from experiments at electron accelerators [1].Specifically, the team showed that this recycling method could create two copper nuclides, copper-64 and copper-67, the second of which has proved difficult to make in sufficient amounts using previous methods.Medical researchers are especially interested in this pair of nuclides, as they could potentially be administered together to fight cancer-with one nuclide delivering therapeutic radiation and the other providing diagnostic imaging.Nuclear medicine.Radioisotopes are used in a number of medical procedures, such as PET scans.