Improving Radio-Labeling Chemistry

When setting up a standard reaction in the lab the ratio of reagents used is typically close to the stoichiometric amounts.  However with radiochemistry the ratio of compound to be labeled to radionuclide is typically >1,000:1.  The reason for this is the mass of the radionuclide required to give the necessary activity is often on the scale of nano grams.  As a result there is often a large excess of starting material that needs to be removed.  In some case Solid Phase Extraction SPE or other methods works very well for this purpose in other it is sometimes necessary to resort to techniques such as HPLC that can be time consuming (loss of product due to radioactive decay).

We are investigating the attachment of the material to be reacted to a solid support where the reaction of the material with the radionuclide will free it from the solid support.  This would allow the excess reagents and leaving group byproducts to be removed by simple filtration.

Making a Better Generator