Making moly: Corvallis tech company aims to ease supply squeeze for medical isotope
About 50,000 times a day, U.S. hospitals perform diagnostic procedures using technetium-99m, a radioactive isotope that enables high-quality imaging for bone scans and functional studies of the brain, heart, lungs and other organs.
Technetium is a byproduct of another isotope, molybdenum-99, which is generally produced — along with other radioactive elements — by splitting uranium atoms in a nuclear reactor.
But only a handful of research reactors around the world are set up to harvest the moly-99, as it’s known, creating a bottleneck that results in frequent moly shortages and subsequent delays in vital medical procedures. To make matters worse, the only source in North America (a reactor at Chalk River in Canada) ceased production in 2016.
A Corvallis startup using technology developed at Oregon State University is taking a novel approach to the moly supply problem — and the company got a big boost last week when it was shortlisted by the Department of Energy for up to $15 million in federal matching funds to help it get to production stage.
Read more: https://www.gazettetimes.com/news/local/making-moly-corvallis-tech-company-aims-to-ease-supply-squeeze/article_7cea7d88-ce4b-5a1f-a74b-bef8c3cffa02.html
