[en] The radiation burden due to radiopharmaceuticals and radiodiagnosticals should be as low as possible. Short-lived radionuclides are therefore of great interest. There is an increasing demand for making short-lived radionuclides, which can be produced with the aid of particle accelerators available at their place of production. This paper shows that there is a path with good prospects of success which has until now been regarded as practically impossible for the production of ¹¹C-labelled compounds. It is the direct activation of organic compounds, illustrated by the example of the amino acids. The preliminary work for their production has already been completed. The use of fast quantitative separation methods would make their use in nuclear medicine possible today already. (orig.)