Laurine Puren was awarded the prize for best oral presentation at the 19th International Workshop on Targetry and Target Chemistry (WTTC19), held August 25-30, 2024 in Heidelberg, Germany.
The prize was awarded for her oral presentation entitled "Production Cross Section Measurements of the natNi(d,x)61Cu Reaction".
Laurine is a 1st year PhD student in the Prisma team at Subatech, working on the production of isotopes of medical interest. More specifically, she is measuring production cross sections using the "Stacked foils" technique. These effective reaction cross-sections are essential for determining the irradiation parameters needed to optimize production of the isotope of interest, while limiting production of contaminating isotopes.
Since the start of her thesis, Laurine has carried out effective cross-section measurements of the natNi(d,x)61Cu and natPd(α,x)111Ag reactions at GIP Arronax. The interest in these isotopes is that 61Cu could be used for PET imaging (it's a β+ emitter) and 111Ag could be used for therapy (β- emitter).

Photo prix WTTC19

Arthur Bongrand, post-doctoral student in the Prisma team at Subatech, won the Young Investigator Award for his poster presentation at the 'International Symposium on Trends in Radiopharmaceuticals (#ISTR2023) organised by IAEA.
HIs poster entitled « Latest development of α emitter imaging and quantification on a large Field Of View » focuses on the value of using autoradiography for the development of α radiopharmaceuticals.

Projet_BePAT

 Photo Arthur Bongrand Subatech

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.

Titre article
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.

 

Keerthana Kamalakannan won the best talk award at the Fifth International Conference on Application of RadiotraCers and Energetic Beams in Sciences (ARCEBS-2023) held January 31-February 5 in Purulia, India.
This award was given to her for her talk entitled “Developement of a time-of-flight mass spectrometer with a laser desorption/ionization source”.

PhD student in the Subatech laboratory, Keerthana leads since 2020 a PhD funded by the GIP ARRONAX. Her work is part of the SMILES project (Séparation en Masse couplée à l’Ionisation Laser pour des applications Environnementales et en Santé) and specifically aim to design and develop a time-of-flight mass spectrometer (TOF-MS) with a laser desorption-ionization (LDI) ion source.

Keerthana will defend her PhD in December 2023.

Keerthana 2023

The 3 Subatech researchers participated in articles published in the online magazine L'Actualité chimique (march-april 2021)

V1 Actu chimique 2021 460 461 couv

 

Radionuclides in the environment: societal and scientific challenges
Sub-theme : Ionising radiation and radioelements...
Key-words : Radionuclides, environment, speciation, effects, interdisciplinarity
By Mirella Del Nero , Gilles Montavon (Subatech)
Researches on the behaviour of natural and artificial radionuclides (RN) in the environment aim to assess, predict or reduce the transfers and the effects of RN (as related to their speciation) in natural systems, and intersect several societal issues : safety of future storage sites of high-level radioactive wastes, management of technologicallyenhanced naturally occurring radioactive sites.
In these contexts, the academic community positions on fundamental research around major issues (database on RN chemistry in solution and interfaces, evaluation of lowdose effects, remediation processes) as well as cross-cutting issues (modelling, state-of-the-art instrumentation). Challenges for the future are to develop multi-scale and interdisciplinary studies, which is illustrated in this article by studies on the fate of RN at the site of an old uranium mine (Rophin, Puy-de-Dôme) and the role of natural organic matter.

Theoretical radiochemistry: from the interpretation to the prediction of experiments
Sub-theme : Ionising radiation and radioelements...
Key-words : Radiochemistry, theory, methods, electronic structure, molecular dynamics
By Rémi Maurice (Subatech) , Eléonor Acher , Nicolas Galland , Dominique Guillaumont , Florent Réal , Éric Renault , Jérôme Roques , André Severo Pereira Gomes , Bruno Siberchicot , Valérie Vallet
Molecular radiochemistry is being developed for different fields of application, such as fundamental chemistry, environment, nuclear safety, and even health. Electronic structure and/or molecular dynamics calculations allow a detailed understanding of the underlying physico-chemical phenomena, and are most often added to experimental data.
This article presents recent examples from the French scientific community to show the issues and difficulties of the theoretical studies, as well as the main challenges for the coming years.

How can radioactivity cure people?
Sub-theme : …that interact with living things and to treat
Key-words : Radiochemistry, nuclear physics, radionuclides, imaging, therapy, nuclear medicine
By Cyrille Alliot , Ferid Haddad (Subatech - Arronax)
Nuclear medicine uses radionuclides for applications in imaging (positrons or γ emitters) and in therapy (α, β- and Auger electrons emitters). Most of the radionuclides used in this context are produced artificially and require the knowledge of many aspects of nuclear physics and radiochemistry to be able to achieve the expected purity for necessary activities.
Through the example of the production at the ARRONAX cyclotron, this article presents the entire production chain for medical radionuclides, emphasizing the constraints of physics and presenting the panorama of chemical techniques used.