Development of a Nuclear Medicine Imaging Platform for Student Training

Practical teaching guide is challenging in the course of nuclear medicine imaging, partially due to the very expensive facilities and the high costs of radiopharmaceutical. So while the usual practical training for students in nuclear medicine imaging mainly includes tour of PET/CT and SPECT/CT in hospital or virtual learning in front of computers, one thing is clear: practical training needs the experiences for student participants. Therefore, it is especially important that college should have a laboratory to launch student experiments by themselves. By developing a lab platform for nuclear imaging experiment, School of Nuclear Science and Technology has the equipment to train students' practical and creative abilities. The imaging platform is made up of NIM modules, 32_channel PCI DAQ, optical tables with orbital and linear translation stages, Scintillation crystals and PMTs, 64 channel uTCA digital DAQ system. Students can setup PET modules and SPECT modules by themselves, take data at either analog or digital modes, and reconstruct PET and SPECT image. The student training should be guided under teachers, and the training program could be one or all of the imaging strategies of radionuclide sources, phantoms, plants, and small animals. (authors)