Who we are
Radionuclides for Health UK is an advocacy project which has been funded by a Queen Mary University of London Impact Award and the Cancer Research UK Radiation Research Network Fund Meeting (January 2021) Award – that aims to highlight the need for the UK to establish a domestic supply of radionuclides for use in cancer research, treatment and diagnostics.
Project Funders: NNL, Research England, CRUK, EPSRC
Our mission
We advocate for the establishment of a stable UK supply of radionuclides for health and medical use.
Our main focus is on the use of radionuclides in innovative cancer treatments such as molecular radiotherapy (i.e. the injection of radioactive substances for therapeutic effect) and in their diagnostic counterparts for cancer imaging.
However, the expansion of this treatment is dependent on a stable UK supply of radionuclides. The UK’s Life Sciences Vision has set bold ambitions for the future of UK science, and we believe this makes it the perfect time to expand our radionuclide production and purification and the delivery of molecular radiotherapy in the UK – it’s an opportunity to make the UK a world leader in this treatment and deliver significant improvements in outcomes for cancer patients.
We are working to achieve this aim with the National Nuclear Laboratory, an interdisciplinary team of UK and international academic colleagues, and organisations such as the British Nuclear Medicine Society and NCRI CTRad. We have shared our ambitions with the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, the Welsh Government Office for Science and the Nuclear Industry Association and are continuing to work with a broad range of stakeholders.
This work is supported through a partnership between the Radiation Research Unit at the Cancer Research UK City of London Centre Award [C7893/A28990], MITHRAS [EP/S032789/1] and the UK National Nuclear Laboratory.
To learn more about our vision and the challenge ahead, why not take a look at our White Paper: ‘Radionuclide Supply in the UK: A path to a cancer breakthrough’.
You can also read more about our work in Queen Mary’s Policy Engagement Case Study
