Integrated Radiochemistry Research Projects of Excellence

The Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) of the Office of Science (SC), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) advances world-class biological and environmental research programs and scientific facilities for DOE missions in energy, environment, and basic research. BER hereby announces its interest in receiving applications for potential funding of Integrated Radiochemistry Research Projects of Excellence (Projects) to serve two important goals: 1) Integrated involvement of graduate-student and postdoctoral trainees in the fundamental research that seeks improvements in radiolabeling and radiotracer development chemistry in the following areas of interest to BER: a) Development of new chemical reactions for high specific activity probe synthesis, b) Models to study reactivity at the tracer mass scale, c) Nanoparticle platforms that can incorporate one or more imaging agents and d) Automation technology for radiotracer synthesis, and 2) Enhancement of training opportunities in radiochemistry to ensure the future availability of human resources for important radiochemistry applications. Such applications include the development of fundamental radiotracer methodologies for both BER mission- relevant biological research needs in the context of energy and environment, and for use in technological advances in nuclear medicine research. Applicant Projects must have access to existing advanced facilities and an interdisciplinary collaborative team of nuclear chemists, radiochemists, synthetic chemists and biochemists able to support a robust research training environment. Institutional settings should offer broad ranging research collaborations with other federally-funded and/or private sector-funded investigators to allow: i) opportunities to link radionuclide production research to incorporation of radioisotopes in a wide range of organic molecules for radiolabeled probe development, and ii) the use of these new probes and methodologies for quantitative in vivo measurement of site-specific (in situ) chemical reactions, their metabolic perturbations and the ensuing biological processes. For details, refer to supplementary information below.