Nuclear radiation used for medical purposes

Bert Wolterbeek, director of the Reactor Institute Delft (RID) told Xinhua in an interview recently that nuclear radiation is not only used to generate energy but can also be used in medicine.

RID is the nuclear research institute at Delft University of Technology and contributes to improved radiation systems used for medical purposes.

"We use the reactor for doing new research on new routes to produce mostly radio isotopes for medical purposes. That could be radio diagnostics, but also radio therapy," Professor Wolterbeek explains to Xinhua.

"One of the big advantages of radio diagnostics is that it is not invasive," Wolterbeek said. "So what you do is that you inject a little bit of radio isotope, which is emitting radiation. What happens is that you combine the radioactivity to a targeting molecule. The molecule brings the radioactivity into the tumor, and the radiation that is emitted tells the doctor what he needs to see."

According to Wolterbeek, there is a negative side effect to the use of so-called ionizing radiation. "Because it liberates elektrons in materials. So that could mean that the structure of materials gets damaged. And if the structure gets damage, the function might get lost," Wolterbeek said.

But that negative side effect can be turned into something positive, Wolterbeek explains. "If you take radiotherapy as an example, the meaning is to destroy the tumor. So the bad side of radiation is put into a good use. If you look at radio diagnostics, by selecting a certain type of radiation, you can see inside a patient without depositing much damage."

The concept of using nuclear radiation for medical purposes is not new. German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen discovered in 1895 Rontgen radiation, an achievement that earned him the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901.

In order to make sure that the nuclear facilities at RID are well-secured, RID is equipped with an extensive visible and invisible security system, aiming to keep people with bad intentions off the area.

These security regulations are needed to ensure that facilities don't fall in the hands of terrorists.

But according to Wolterbeek, RID never felt any substantial terrorist threat in its history. "But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't put all these security measures in place. We have many security systems not because there is a possible threat, but because you want to have that system running at all times," Wolterbeek said.