Laboratoire de physique subatomique et des technologies associées

Is 70Zn(d,x)67Cu the Best Way to Produce 67Cu for Medical Applications?

Four researchers from the PRISMA team in collaboration with GIP ARRONAX have just published the results of their research on the production of ⁶⁷Cu from ⁷⁰Zn in the journal Frontiers in Medicine, section Nuclear Medicine.

Access to the full article : https://doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2021.674617

⁶⁷Cu is a radionuclide with interesting physical properties for therapeutic applications. It is a beta-emitter with a maximum energy of between 350 and 600 keV, which corresponds to an electron path of about 3 mm in water. This energy range, comparable to that of ¹⁷⁷Lu currently used in internal vectorised radiotherapy, is not very high and allows localised treatment and limits the dose received by surrounding healthy tissue. ⁶⁷Cu has a half-life of 61.8 h which is suitable for therapeutic use. SPECT imaging detectors work best with gamma photons in the 100-400 keV energy range. ⁶⁷Cu emits gamma photons, particularly the most intense at 184.6 keV, in this energy range without emitting higher energy gammas that would degrade image resolution. It therefore offers the possibility of performing SPECT imaging in parallel with the therapy, which allows monitoring of the diffusion and distribution of ⁶⁷Cu.

The place of radiolysis in the origins of life

The radiolysis of carbonates (CO32-), studied in the Radiochemistry team of the SUBATECH laboratory and using the irradiation beam of the Arronax cyclotron in collaboration with the ISTerre laboratory, has proved to be the explanation for the origin of life on Earth? Indeed, the radiolysis of carbonate ions produced the organic matter necessary for the development of life on Earth, thus allowing the transition from an inorganic world to an organic world.
This work, the result of a collaboration with Laurent Truche, a geochemist at the Institute of Earth Sciences at the University of Grenoble Alpes, led at Subatech by Johan Vandenborre, a CNRS research fellow, is published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
On the same subject, an article was published in Quanta Magazine for which Johan Vandenborre, Laurent Truche and Bénédicte Menez, geobioligist at the Institut de physique du globe de Paris, were interviewed.
Read article --- > https://www.quantamagazine.org/radioactivity-may-fuel-life-deep-underground-and-inside-other-worlds-20210524/
Quanta Magazine Podcast ----> https://d2r55xnwy6nx47.cloudfront.net/uploads/2021/08/quanta-169_Radioactive-Life_FINAL.mp3

        Radiolyse Subatech from left to right: Johan Vandenborre (researcher - manager team),
Guillaume Blain (engineer), Vincent Fiegel (postdoc),
Emeline Craff (PhD student), Simon Guillonneau (trainee Master 2)