Coin-Shaped Reactor in Microfluidic Devices Used for Radiopharmaceutical Synthesis

摘要

A microfluidic device has been designed and optimized for the multi-step synthesis of PET (Positron Emisssion Tomography) probes. Its PDMS elastomer-based architecture centered around a (5 μL) coin-shaped reactor has novel features that facilitate mixing, solvent exchange, product collection and overall synthetic efficiency. New microfluidic properties and processes have been demonstrated in this reactor. Novel mechanisms, such as chemically-assisted mixing and vacuum evaporation across a membrane are utilized. The device presented here, the size of a penny, is the first device in its class to produce radiopharmaceuticals of sufficient quality and quantity (over 2 mCi) to be validated by in vivo imaging. It demonstrates the potential to produce multiple human doses of radio-pharmaceutials, such as ~(18)FDG ([~(18)F]2-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose) in the near future.