From Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen's search for new kinds of radiation resulted the discovery of the natural radioactivity of uranium by Antoine Henry Becquerel in 1896. This event opened a new era of science that can be considered as the beginning of nuclear sciences. The findings of Pierre and Marie Curie of radium and polonium as useful radiation source subsequently opened the way to the first applications of radiation in medicine. Over the decades and still today radiation has found broad applications in many fields of science and technology. Not only chemistry, physics, biochemistry and medicine are using relevant applications of radioactivity. Biochemistry, agriculture, cosmo- and geochemistry, archaeology, geology also are fields where radiochemistry still is gaining importance. This book gives a survey about the history and modern aspects of radioactivity, new synthetic elements, and applications of radioactivity."

Radiochemical methodology constitutes the most important base for the successful functioning of a PET group in the routine production and development of radiopharmaceuticals. Of the several hundred products which have been labelled with positron emitters during the past two decades about 35 are presently considered to be of major interest. The time for a state-of-the-art review is right, since this field has advanced over the past fifteen years to reach a level where guidelines can now be suggested. Chapters of this book deal with each of the main methodological aspects of the chemistry needed to develop an effective radiopharmaceutical, namely radionuclide production, automation and metabolite analysis. A further chapter on QA/QC is written by a broadly-based expert group and is meant to provide a guideline and a base for future monographs and regulations on major PET radiopharmaceuticals of today. This book will help the increasing numbers of scientists who are now entering the field of PET to appreciate the methodological aspects that are normally addressed by chemists in relation to PET radiopharmaceuticals; it provides many useful practical guidelines and will promote early success in their own endeavours, since these will often necessarily begin by establishing chemical methodology of the kind discussed here.

Radiochemical methodology constitutes the most important base for the successful functioning of a PET group in the routine production and development of radiopharmaceuticals. Of the several hundred products which have been labelled with positron emitters during the past two decades about 35 are presently considered to be of major interest. The time for a state-of-the-art review is right, since this field has advanced over the past fifteen years to reach a level where guidelines can now be suggested. Chapters of this book deal with each of the main methodological aspects of the chemistry needed to develop an effective radiopharmaceutical, namely radionuclide production, automation and metabolite analysis. A further chapter on QA/QC is written by a broadly-based expert group and is meant to provide a guideline and a base for future monographs and regulations on major PET radiopharmaceuticals of today. This book will help the increasing numbers of scientists who are now entering the field of PET to appreciate the methodological aspects that are normally addressed by chemists in relation to PET radiopharmaceuticals; it provides many useful practical guidelines and will promote early success in their own endeavours, since these will often necessarily begin by establishing chemical methodology of the kind discussed here.