Medical Radioisotope Production Using Inverse Kinematics

A novel approach to produce medically important radionuclides using inverse kinematics has been developed at the Cyclotron Institute at Texas A&M University. The methodology consists in impinging a heavy-ion beam of appropriate energy on a light gas target and collecting the isotope of interest, focused along the beam direction, on a foil catcher after the target. As the quantity of the material required to prepare heavy-ion beam is considerably smaller than that used in the standard solid target approach, material costs are expected to be reduced through this methodology. The theranostic radionuclide ⁶⁷Cu (T_1/2 = 62 h) were produced through the reaction of a ⁷⁰Zn beam at 15 MeV/nucleon with a H₂ gas target. The ⁶⁷Cu radionuclide alongside other coproduced isotopes, was collected after the gas target on an aluminum catcher foil and their radioactivity was measured by off-line γ-ray analysis. Pursuing the investigation, the well-known ⁹⁹Mo/^99mTc generator system was also tested with a beam of ¹⁰⁰Mo at 12 MeV/nucleon on ⁴He gas target for three different gas pressures. The methodology has been tested with success. The production of the ⁶⁷Cu and ⁹⁹Mo were predominant in comparison with the radio impurities.