Radiochemistry and its application to nuclear medicine

The role of the radiochemist in Nuclear Medicine has increased since the early 1960's. At that time the first medical 99Mo/99m/Tc generator was developed at Brookhaven National Laboratory and the first hospital based cyclotron installed at Washington University. Radiochemists have been involved in both the development and application of generator and accelerator based radiopharmaceuticals. The development of oxygen-15, nitrogen 13, carbon-11 and fluorine-18 simple compound and synthetic precursors will be discussed. In recent years new high current accelerators have been proposed from Nuclear Medicine isotope production. Generator produced radiopharmaceuticals continue to play a major role in Nuclear Medicine. Problems in the development of targetry to produce parent nuclides as well as challenges in generator development will be described