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Article: Wanted: Medical Isotopes.
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- October 23, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Overcoming a critical scarcity of radioactive materials for research
Martin Brechbiel had promising results indicating that a radioactive isotope called bismuth-212 could destroy cancers in laboratory animals. Yet his work at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., stopped short in April 1998 when his radioisotope supply suddenly dried up.
Alan R. Fritzberg at NeoRx Corp. in Seattle had also been successfully using bismuth-212 to treat cancers in animal experiments. His work, too, was stopped.
The Department of Energy's Argonne (Ill.) National Laboratory had ceased making the generators that hold radium-224, which decays into lead-212. ...