• Question: Who discovered radioactive labelling, as it states it is the radioactive form of isotopic labelling?

    Asked by O.Hawkins to Ellen on 17 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Ellen Gill

      Ellen Gill answered on 17 Jun 2016:

      Unfortunately I don’t know much about medical physics, as my main job is looking at background radiation. Thomas should have no problem answering that though!

Comments

  • Photo: Thomas

    Thomas commented on :

    Frederic Paneth and Georg von Hevesy were the first people to carry out an experiment using radioactive labelling in 1913 after Hevesy came up with the idea

    It follows the same idea of isotopic labelling where you swap an atom in a molecule you’re interested in for a specific isotope then you can follow the molecule by following the isotope. In radioactive labelling you again swap an atom but this time you use an isotope that is radioactive (it sends out radiation). So now you can follow the molecule by following the radiation.

    This is exactly what we do in nuclear medicine we detect the radiation to build up a picture of where the radiation is because we’re interested in where the drug that we labelled has ended up in the body.