Radiopharmaceutical Chemistry Laboratory

Working at the interphase of medicinal chemistry, radiochemistry and biology, the Radiopharmaceutical Chemistry Group holds the necessary  infrastructure to support the development of the next-generation radiopharmaceuticals:

1. Synthetic chemistry laboratory. It is exceptionally equipped allowing extensive and modern synthetic techniques to be exercised. The equipment includes fume hoods, Schlenk lines, inert gas supply, pressurized air supply, high vacuum pump, dry-solvent stills (THF, DCM, toluene), an analytical HPLC system and well-ventilated cabinets for chemical storage.  The Radiopharmaceutical Chemistry Laboratory has open access to excellent facilities for structure determination including two NMRs (at 500 and 250 MHz), IR, HRMS and X-ray crystallography.
2. Radiochemistry laboratory. The hot-lab facilities include hotcells dedicated for the radiolabeling of compounds with β and γ emitters (^99mTc, ¹⁸F, ^186/188Re, ⁶⁸Ga, etc.) suitably equipped for the safe handling of radionuclides. Additional equipment includes γ-counters, dose calibrators and survey monitors.
3.  Radioanalytical laboratory. It is suitably equipped for the structure elucidation of the radiolabelled compounds synthesized. The laboratory currently holds three analytical radio-HPLC systems used for this purpose, as well as instrumentation for other activities including quality control, stability and radiometabolite studies, etc.
4. The laboratory of biological studies.  In the laboratory take place all preparatory activities for in vitro/in vivo experiments for the biological evaluation of the new probes (cell cultures, incubators, for biodistribution studies in animal models etc.) The experiments are implemented within the infrastructure of the Radiopharmacy group of INRASTES.

In addition to the above, there is considerable infrastructure for radiopharmaceutical kit formulation including lyophilizators, water for injection reverse-osmosis system, sterilization autoclaves and dry ovens.