The ideal radionuclide for medical imaging decays away on the timescale of the procedure so that the patient does not receive unnecessary radiation dose waiting for the imaging agent to slowly decay or to clear biologically. So appealing in medicine, short-lived nuclides (with half-lives on the order of seconds to minutes) by nature present a measurement challenge. For quantitative imaging applications, measurement traceability to an activity standard is highly desirable. To establish such a standard requires fundamental measurements involving primary methods. Historically, this has been a time-intensive process carried out at a National Metrology Institute such as NIST. Thus, logistical challenges have prevented the establishment of primary standards for medically important nuclides such as Rb-82 (t_1/2 = 75 s).

NIST is meeting these challenges through the development of a field-deployable portable triple-to-double coincidence ratio liquid scintillation counter (p-TDCR). This instrument will allow NIST to perform primary activity measurements at production/clinical sites. This opportunity centers on the development of the p-TDCR. The project will involve hardware and software (LabVIEW) design and integration and basic metrology. Ultimately, the project will result in field measurements that have a tremendous impact on efforts at quantitation in nuclear medicine and molecular imaging.

 

key words

Liquid scintillation counting; Triple-to-double coincidence ratio; Nuclear medicine; Quantitative imaging; Radionuclide metrology; LabVIEW FPGA;

Citizenship:  Open to U.S. citizens

Level:  Open to Postdoctoral applicants