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EDITORIAL article

Front. Chem., 27 February 2024
Sec. Inorganic Chemistry
This article is part of the Research Topic Production of Novel Medical Radionuclides and Innovative Radiopharmaceuticals View all 5 articles

Editorial: Production of novel medical radionuclides and innovative radiopharmaceuticals

  • 1Department of Chemistry, Diamond Harbour Women’s University, Sarisha, India
  • 2Department of Physics, Sidho Kanho Birsha University, Purulia, India

It has been more than 100 years and radioactivity and radioisotopes are still serving mankind. The aim of nuclear science, nuclear physics, nuclear chemistry, or nuclear medicine is to discover new radioactive isotopes for the betterment of mankind, to design benign separation methods of no-carrier-added radioisotopes from the target matrix, and to synthesize new radiopharmaceuticals for more precise delivery of the radioisotope to the target organs.

Nuclear medicine passed through several phases. Two important focuses in the present phase are 1) to discover theragnostic pair of radionuclides, which will simultaneously perform therapy and diagnosis and reduce radiation burden to patient and operators and 2) to investigate non-standard (different from most common ones) radioisotopes for diagnosis and therapy. These non-standard radioisotopes provide opportunities for personalized medicine. New insights in the radiolabeling methods made the present phase of nuclear medicine more human-centric, and radiopharmaceuticals are designed with human-compatible biomolecules like DOTA-TATE (tyrosine analogue), DOTATOC, somatostatin, human monoclonal antibody, etc.

In this Research Topic of Frontiers in Chemistry, “Production of Novel Medical Radionuclides and Innovative Radiopharmaceuticals” stalwarts in the field described the current state of knowledge on different Medical Radionuclides. There are four articles on the clinical importance of the radionuclides of four elements, Sc, Cu, Tm and Lu, distributed over various periods and groups of the Periodic Table.

The Sc radionuclides 43Sc, 44gSc, and 47Sc are being considered as alternatives to Ga radionuclides. 43Sc/44gSc and 47Sc combination may be good theragnostic pairs. However, to date, the production of Sc radionuclides, in the playable amount required for in vivo administration, has several constraints including the use of costly enriched targets. The article by Becker et al. describes various aspects of cyclotron production of Sc radionuclides and reviews the current state of knowledge, and using Sc radionuclides as an alternative to Ga may be helpful in the future.

The copper radionuclides are now in the centre stage of discussion for in vivo theragnostic applications. 60,61,62,64Cu radionuclides are positron emitters and therefore suitable for imaging. Out of these, 60Cu and 62Cu have relatively shorter half-lives and in vivo application is possible only at a very near vicinity of the cyclotron. The other two radionuclides, i.e., 61Cu and 64Cu have considerable half-lives for imaging purposes. On the other hand, 67Cu is a β emitter and suitable for therapeutic application. Therefore, 67Cu and any one of the four imaging radionuclides of copper together will be an excellent theragnostic pair of radionuclides. 64Cu is another interesting radionuclide; it emits Auger electron, β, and β+. Therefore, this single radionuclide can be used for theragnostic purposes. However, the literature review reveals lots of discrepancies in nuclear data in terms of thick target yield, excitation function, and decay data. These discrepancies would lead to erroneous calculations and would ultimately affect the calculation of radiation dose to target tissues. The article by Hussain et al. authoritatively discusses the discrepancies in the nuclear data and is expected to serve the nuclear scientists including physicians for a long time to carry out the intended clinical task.

In the last decade, the most successful “lab to bed” radioisotope is 177Lu, which has been regularly supplied to hospitals for the treatment of various types of ailments related to cancer including neuroendocrine tumours and prostate cancer. Several vectors like DOTA-TATE, PSMA, etc., are tagged to 177Lu for making the radioisotope target-specific. George and Samuel presented a comprehensive review of the current status of the radiopharmaceutical chemistry of 177Lu as well as personalized dosimetry upon delivering 177Lu to the patients.

The article by Renaldin et al. highlights another lanthanide radionuclide 167Tm. It is true that the other two lanthanide radionuclides, 177Lu and the terbium quadruplets, 149,152,155,161Tb have gotten more attention in recent times. Nevertheless, the nuclear properties of 167Lu would allow it to follow longer biological processes. The authors compared the theoretical simulation codes and experimental production cross-sections of 167Tm from various target materials like enriched 167Er, 168Er, natTm, natYb, etc. They also discussed the radiochemical separation technique of 167Tm from the target matrix.

In a nutshell, I believe that this Research Topic of Frontiers in Chemistry would be a reference for both experts and beginners.

Thanks to my co-editors Dr. Zeynep Talip and Dr. Kohshin Washiyama. Thanks also to the Frontiers team for all the help to bring out this nice issue.

Author contributions

SL: Writing–original draft, Writing–review and editing.

Conflict of interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Keywords: cyclotron production, theragnostic radioisotopes, Sc radioisotopes, Cu radioisotopes, Lu radioisotopes, Tm radioisotopes

Citation: Lahiri S (2024) Editorial: Production of novel medical radionuclides and innovative radiopharmaceuticals. Front. Chem. 12:1386045. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2024.1386045

Received: 14 February 2024; Accepted: 19 February 2024;
Published: 27 February 2024.

Edited and reviewed by:

Luís D. Carlos, University of Aveiro, Portugal

Copyright © 2024 Lahiri. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Susanta Lahiri, susanta.lahiri.sinp@gmail.com

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.