Nuclear Medicine Program Facilities and Resources
The Nuclear Medicine Program has approved procedures and
laboratories and facilities available for radiochemistry, pharmaceutical synthesis and
analytical studies. Available instrumentation includes two 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 has been 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. Hot cell facilities are
available for radioisotope processing, and Drug Master Files (DMF’s) can be
developed for radioisotope products as required.
It is also expected that Current
Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) will be instituted
at ORNL in 2005, initially for the tungsten-188/rhenium-188
generator system, so that radioisotope products can be
provided under cGMP’s
to our commercial customers.
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 and mass spectrometry capabilities.
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: Highly level hot cells
are available for target processing
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