Radioactive ion beams for biomedical research and nuclear medical application

The ISOLDE facility at CERN is the world leading on On-Line Isotope Separator installation. The main aspects which makes ISOLDE produced radio-isotopes such valuable for use in biomedical research are: the availability of exotic or uncommon radioisotopes, the high purity and the ion beam quality. A short overview on research strategies, on experimental work and application of ISOLDE produced radionuclides used in the field of biomedicine over a period of more than 2 decades will be given. Special attention will be directed to the radio- lanthanides, because they can be seen as one single element providing the unique possibility to study systematically relationships between molecule parameters and a biological response without changes in the basic tracer molecule. Among those radionuclides we find any radiation properties we wish (single photon emission) suitable for SPECT, positron emission suitable for positron emission tomography (PET), alpha -, beta /sup -/- and Auger electron emission. (21 refs).