Specialized Resource 1 Principal investigator/Program Director (Last, First, Middle): Herschman, Harvey R. D.1. CYCLOTRON AND RADIOCHEMISTRY SPECIALIZED RESOURCE {DIRECTOR, N. SATYAMURTHY. PH.D.) D.1.1. Introduction. The Cyclotron and Radiochemistry facility is a Specialized Resource component of both the UCLA-ICMIC and the UCLA Institute of Molecular Medicine (IMED) program. IMED had it roots in the longstanding Department of Energy-supported effort in positron emission tomography research at UCLA. Our history with the IMED program thus predates the initiation of the NCI ICMIC, extending back for over nearly four decades, when it was associated with the Atomic Energy Commission, and later the Department of Energy. The prime objective of the Cyclotron and Radiochemistry Specialized Resource of the UCLA ICMIC is to support both research and production for all positron-emitting probe needs of UCLA-ICMIC investigators, and to serve other UCLA research projects that complement these research programs. The UCLA Cyclotron and Radiochemistry Specialized Resource began its operation in July 1971. During the 1960s the Division of Biology and Medicine of the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC, the predecessor of Department of Energy) undertook a program of fostering the installation and operation of compact cyclotrons at several medical centers across the United States. The intent was to stimulate the development of radioactive nuclides as diagnostic tools in medicine by making available a large number of promising radionuclides with desirable physical and chemical properties, but which could not be produced in nuclear reactors. As a consequence, an AEC-sponsored medical cyclotron program was initiated at UCLA and a model CS-22 cyclotron built by the Cyclotron Corporation (Berkeley, CA) capable of accelerating H*, D'', ^He** and ''He^'^ at fixed energies of 22, 12, 31, and 24 MeV, respectively was installed in a specially built vault at UCLA in 1971. A radiochemistry laboratory and a machine shop along with the cyclotron, all housed in a single story building adjacent to the UCLA Medical Center, formed the original cyclotron core laboratory. Due to increasing demand for radioisotopes, in 1990 a new 11 MeV proton RDS-112 negative ion cyclotron (manufactured by CTI, Knoxville TN) in a new building next to the CS-22 cyclotron building was added to the Radiochemistry Specialized Resource. The consequences of the Northridge earthquake of January 1994 mandated a replacement of the CS-22 cyclotron. An 11 MeV proton only RDS-112 negative ion cyclotron (manufactured by CTI Knoxville, TN) replaced the damaged CS-22 accelerator in June 1994. A complete renovation of the cyclotron laboratory took place in 1997, for the first time since the inception of the facility. The new compact, self-shielded RDS-112 cyclotron occupies only one half of the vault that the CS-22 cyclotron previously occupied, allowing the other half to be used for maintenance and repair of cyclotron-related components. The Cyclotron and Radiochemistry Specialized Resource, since its inception in 1971, has an excellent history of supporting the needs of UCLA Nuclear Medicine research. With the CS-22 cyclotron, this Specialized Resource has developed or adopted techniques for the production of more than twenty five different radioisotopes. As a centralized service unit, the Cyclotron and Radiochemistry Specialized Resource in the last nearly forty years has been providing various investigators carrying out Nuclear Medicine related research with positron emitting biomarkers. Until the ICMIC Program began, we supplied positron-emitting probes for studies primarily in large animals and in humans. With the development of microPET instrumentation, along with the influx of cell and molecular biologists who have turned to molecular imaging techniques under the ICMIC auspices, we now find our user base to have increased substantially, and the nature of the research we support to be far more varied. It has been both scientifically profitable and personally rewarding for the Cyclotron and Radiochemistry Specialized Resource staff to expand our interactions with the biological community at UCLA, as a result of the ICMIC extension of molecular imaging techniques throughout our molecular and cell biology community. The Cyclotron and Radiochemistry Specialized Resource is supported in part by income from clinical operations. Additional funds come from ICMIC resources and from individual grants that have Nuclear Medicine support components. Approximately 25% of our radiosynthesis work is for ICMIC programs;the bulk of the remainder of the research syntheses are for related basic sciences studies and for clinical programs. In reality, the clinical income supports and supplements, to some extent, programs that are under the ICMIC aegis.
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