Ural Federal University Scientists Develop Nuclear Medicine Technologies

13:46, February 5, 2021

Prof. Vladimir Ivanov gave an interview to TASS News Agency, highlighted major prospectives in development of these technologies

Scientists of the Ural Federal University are developing technologies and, in the future, radiopharmaceuticals for the diagnosis of oncological diseases. This was stated by the director of the Physics and Technology Institute of UrFU Prof. Vladimir Ivanov at a press conference in the Ural Information Center TASS, dedicated to the fight against cancer in the Sverdlovsk region.

The participation of UrFU in solving the most important socially significant problem is due to several factors.

“Firstly, in terms of reducing mortality from cancer, discussion rhetoric at all levels almost everywhere mentions the phrase“ nuclear medicine," and since the 1950s, UrFU has been developing peaceful nuclear technologies,” noted Vladimir Ivanov.

Secondly, over the past few decades, medical diagnostics and therapy have become very high-tech industries that use highly complex hardware systems. The training of medical physicists has become extremely urgent.

Finally, practically in all high technologies of modern medicine, without exception, domestic developments are extremely poorly represented, and this is especially true for complex diagnostic and therapeutic equipment. The same applies to radiopharmaceuticals used in medical practice. Except for a few domestic developments almost forty years ago, in our domestic market today there are drugs developed abroad or generics.

To overcome these gaps and solve the problems of import substitution in the field of high-tech medicine, UrFU has begun training in the group of specialties of the direction of Fundamental medicine - Medical biochemistry, Medical biophysics, Medical cybernetics, and also continues training specialists in the field of biomedical engineering and pharmaceuticals.

“We have also conceived and are implementing a project, which is difficult even for a federal university, to create a cyclotron center for nuclear medicine. We are fully aware that the region is waiting for the start of the production of a radiopharmaceutical based on the isotope fluorine-18 (fluorodeoxyglucose) in our center, and we are trying to do everything to make this moment come as soon as possible,” concluded Vladimir Ivanov.