World Council on Isotopes, Seoul (2026)

09/09/2022

WCI and 11ICI jointly exhibited the mission and activities of the WCI and the next year's 11ICI to be held in Saskatoon, Canada, July 23-27, 2023 at the Second International Conference on Applications of Radiation Science and Technology (ICARST-2) from 22 to 26 August 2022 in Vienna, Austria.

Concerning the exhibitions that were located in the vicinity of the conference rooms in the IAEA M Building throughout the conference session, the WCI and the 11ICI were represented by Ms. Hojin Jung and Prof. Chary Rangacharyulu who played a key role in exhibiting the mission and activities of the WCI and next year's 11ICI to be held in Saskatoon, Canada during July 23-27, 2023.

The ICARST-2, from 22 to 26 August 2022 in Vienna, Austria, was organized by the IAEA to provide a unique opportunity to review state-of-the-art science, key developments in applications of radiation science and technology, and global, regional, and national initiatives for the implementing of proven industrial applications leading to positive economic and social benefits and capacity building in the Member States.

09/09/2022

The WCI Secretariat released the 2022 WCI Monthly Newsletter September Issue. This issue has two lead articles. One is “the era for radionuclide therapy is coming back” written by Keon Wook Kang, MD, Ph.D., Prof., Department of Nuclear Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine and Chair, Medical Applications Special Committee, World Council on Isotope.

Unlike diagnostic nuclear medicine, new therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals have been rarely introduced in clinics. However, game-changing treatment modalities such as cell and gene therapies have been receiving the spotlight in big pharmaceutical companies.

High cost is no longer an insurmountable hurdle for big pharmaceutical companies, leading to radionuclide therapy gaining meaningful attention.

As radionuclide therapies gain popularity, the demand for therapeutic radionuclides is increasing. The market size in this area is becoming bigger and bigger. Finally, he urged global collaboration among researchers, industry, regulators, and the WCI to play the role of acting as a good coordinator for harmonizing them.

The other is “Korean Isotope Production Reactor at Kijang” written by Dr. Minhwan Kim, Vice President for Kijang Research Reactor Design & Construction Agency, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI).

The groundbreaking ceremony for the “Korean Isotope Production Reactor at Kijang” took place on August 31, 2022. At this ceremony, the Korean government officially announced the start of KJRR construction work. Dr. Kim described what the Korean government and the KAERI have done and will do for this reactor construction.

He especially emphasized the characteristics of the KJ research reactor in his article: a pool-type and light-water-cooled reactor with 15 MW thermal power and a maximum thermal flux of 3ⅹ1014 n/cm2 s, producing mainly Mo-99, I-131, I-125, and Ir-192.

In addition, the newsletter contains "Isotope-related News", "Sketches from the Secretariat", and "Future Conferences and Events chapter".

For more information, please visit the WCI website: http://wci-ici.org/04_public/public01.html.

07/08/2022

The WCI Secretariat released the 2022 WCI Monthly Newsletter August Issue: As a lead article of this issue, “Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Radioisotopes ” was written by Van Zyl de Villers, Former Director of Operations, Department Safeguards, IAEA.

The author emphasized that the 10th review conference of the NPT will discuss in August 2022: Currently, only eight of the NPT state parties bring into force comprehensive safeguards agreements with the IAEA as required by NPT Article III. A total of 132 states also have a so-called Additional Protocol (AP) to their safeguards agreements in force, allowing the IAEA to verify the exclusively peaceful nature of each state’s nuclear activities.

The NPT and the implementation of IAEA safeguards are of interest to producers and users of radioisotopes, due to the following reasons:

o In addition to nuclear power generation, nuclear technologies (and specifically radioisotopes) are used extensively in human health (for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes), agriculture, water resources and environmental management, and in the industry at large.

o All users of radioisotopes should be aware of the possible non-peaceful uses of the underlying technologies and keep track of the nuclear material involved in the production or use of radioisotopes.

With reference to the latter point, a substantial amount of radioisotopes are produced in research and power reactors. Specifically, isotope-producing research reactors use fuel that contains highly enriched uranium (HEU).

Despite numerous programs over the last few decades to reduce the civilian use of HEU, especially in reactor fuel and isotope production, this material still forms part of the radioisotope supply chain.

The following are a few examples of such initiatives to reduce the civilian use of HEU:

o Actions by the world’s main radioisotope producers to move away from the use of HEU in reactor fuel and/or isotope production target material.

o Research, development, and technology demonstration programs in various countries, through a combination of government-funded activities and private sector initiatives, aimed at the production of molybdenum-99 with accelerators or by using non-uranium-containing targets in reactors.

Therefore, all role-players such as producers, distributors and users of radioisotopes should ensure that isotope supply chain activities are performed strictly within the provisions of the relevant countries’ non-proliferation and nuclear safeguards obligations.

In addition, the newsletter contains "Isotope-related News", "Sketches from the Secretariat", and "Future Conferences and Events chapter".

For more information, please visit the WCI website: http://wci-ici.org/04_public/public01.html.

07/08/2022

Paul Dickman, President-elect of the WCI had the opportunity to discuss current issues with local WCI members on July 29, 2022 in Seoul, S. Korea.

Paul Dickman, one member of the USA delegation, visited Korea July 26 to 30, 2022. During his stay in S. Korea, he had an opportunity to visit the Korea Atomic Energy Institute (KAERI) and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) to discuss nuclear R&D cooperation between the Republic of Korea and the United States of America. In particular, the R&D policy to develop the Small Modular Reactor (SMR) that the government of the Republic of Korea has recently approved was discussed in depth. At the meetings, Paul Dickman invited KAERI and KAIST representatives to join the 11ICI, in Saskatoon, Canada, July 23-27, 2023. The 11ICI will deal with the SMR issue.

Despite his busy schedule, he shared some of his valuable time with the local WCI members to discuss the current issues regarding WCI activities. Paul Dickman, President-elect, was reported to by Woo-Geun Song, Secretary-General on the updates that he has implemented since January.

Nam Ho International Coordinator and Keon Wook Kang, Medical Applications Chair joined this meeting at a Korean restaurant in downtown Seoul, Korea on July 29, 2022.

Jong Kyung Kim, President, and Myung Chul Lee, former President were absent, due to a visit to the UK and the corona pandemic respectively.

16/07/2022

The WCI Secretariat released 2022 WCI Monthly Newsletter July Issue:

As a lead article of this issue, “Artificial Intelligence in Today’s Radiology for COVID-19 Imaging Diagnosis” was written by Syahidah Nurani, Department of Control and Instrumentation, School of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, and Zulkifli Mohamed Hashim, Director, Isopharma (M) Sdn. Bhd. No. 6, Suntrack Industrial Hub, Section 13, Bandar Baru Bangi, 43000 Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia.

The authors said that artificial intelligence(AI) system has enabled more rapid testing, disease prediction, and public sentiment analysis of COVID-19 cases, and has currently improved COVID-19 diagnostic accuracy by applying deep learning techniques that work well with small datasets of medical images.

In addition, they said that AI system analyzed and detected abnormalities in a chest radiograph with a sensitivity rate of 71%, and a specificity rate of 95%, together with a reduction in the reporting time for critical imaging findings - from 11.2 days to as little as 2.7 days.

As a result, it was said that exploring AI applications in diagnostic imaging can help curb COVID-19 outbreaks.

In addition, the newsletter contains "Isotope-related News", "Sketches from the Secretariat", and "Future Conferences and Events chapter".

16/07/2022

The WCI Secretariat will undertake advisory services to expand training courses and improve technology transfer for the WCI members.

The WCI has the objective to promote cooperation regarding the sharing of safe and environmentally sound isotope technologies for uses that serve the needs for global wellbeing.

In addition, the WCI has the objective to promote the safe and environmentally sound use of isotope technologies for global well-being. Specifically, the WCI shall help promote technology transfers for and to businesses among WCI members through the WCI newsletter and homepage.

Therefore, the WCI Secretariat is now undertaking advisory services to explore the possibility of co-organizing training courses with the US DOE and strengthening technology transfer promotion programs for active technology transfers within the RI family worldwide.

Consultant Country Field of advisory service
Paul Dickman USA Training courses with the US DoE
Syed M. Qaim Germany Technology transfer at a national level
Nigel Stevenson USA Technology transfer at a firm-level
Lidia Matei Canada Technology transfer at a national level
Jong Kyung Kim R.O.K Technology transfer at a national level

The above-mentioned service providers will undertake their advisory services for a 3 month period running until the end of September 2022.

The advisory documents will be posted on the WCI website, and lead articles from these will be released via the WCI newsletter subsequently, in the service providers’ names.

In particular, the service providers involved in technology transfers will highlight the common or professional incentives and barriers to market entry from foreign countries at a national level, or at a firm’s level.

The WCI Secretariat will continue with its mission to provide suitable information to promote technology transfers for the WCI members in the future

10/06/2022

The WCI Secretariat released 2022 WCI Monthly Newsletter June Issue: As a lead article of this issue, “Radiopharmaceuticals for Breast Cancer Management” was written by Dr. Jaya Shukla, Aditional Professor (Radiochemistry), Department of Nuclear Medicine, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh 160012, India.

The author said that breast cancer remains the most common cancer affecting women, and as of January 2022, the number of breast cancer cases stands at 3.8 million, and the estimated burden by 2040 is around 28.4 million cases.

She insisted that the best way to detect cancer is by monitoring the patient closely to obtain information, primarily by observing the patient’s responses to therapy and the efficacy of therapy.

Her article discussed “types of breast cancer”, “radiopharmaceuticals for breast cancer”, “diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals”, and “therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals” for the treatment of breast cancer of women.

Finally, she concluded: that radiopharmaceuticals have significant roles in the diagnosis, management, and response evaluation of breast cancer, and the targeted radionuclide therapy is emerging as a boon for relapsed, refractory, and disseminated breast cancer treatment.

In addition, the newsletter contains "Isotope-related News", "Sketches from the Secretariat", and "Future Conferences and Events chapter".

10/06/2022

The WCI Secretariat will organize the IAEA-WCI-KAERI e-learning course on “Diagnostic and Therapeutic Radioisotopes and Radiopharmaceutical Application“ in September 2022.

This e-learning course was rebuilt by Prof. Dr. Syed M. Qaim, Advisor, INM-5: Nuclear Chemistry, Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ), Germany, and the WCI Education and Training Committee Chair in 2021.

The new course includes a fundamental understanding of the production of radionuclides(Syed M. Qaim), preparation of “organic” radiopharmaceuticals (J. Ermert), preparation of “metallic” radiopharmaceuticals (F. Rösch), regulatory aspects of the development of new radiopharmaceuticals (C. Decristoforo), and molecular imaging (K. Ziemons).

On these matters, the WCI Secretariat officially invited new lecturers to have an opportunity to give their own lectures to the participants from developing countries all over the world.

This e-learning course will take place in September 2022. The IAEA is also eagerly involved in supporting this training course.
For your reference, the amended curriculums are shown below:

Module 1: Radionuclide Production
- Basics of radioisotopes (E.J. Lee)
- Nuclear data for medical radionuclides – an overview (S.M. Qaim)
- Production of radionuclides using nuclear reactors (emphasis on 99Mo, 125,131I, 177Lu, 223Ra, 225Ac, etc.) (S.K. Lee)
- Accelerator-based production of medical radionuclides – an overview (S.M. Qaim)
- Cyclotron production of radionuclides (emphasis on targetry; chemical processing; production of 67Ga, 103Pd, 111In,
123I, 201Tl, 211At, 225Ac, etc.) (S.D. Yang)
- Generator-produced radionuclides, especially 99Mo/99mTc; 90Sr/90Y; 188W/188Re (S.K. Lee), and 68Ge/68Ga; 82Sr/82Rb (S.D. Yang)
- Government policy for radioisotopes in Korea (Y.K. Soo)

Module 2: Radiopharmaceutical Production and Application
- *Labelling with radionuclides of radiohalogens and short- lived organic positron emitters; general aspects of quality control of radiopharmaceuticals (J. Ermert)
- *Novel metallic radionuclides for theranostic applications (F. Rösch)
- *Practical and regulatory issues in the establishment of novel radiopharmaceuticals (C. Decristoforo)
- 99mTc-radiopharmaceuticals (J.M. Jeong)
- Overview of radiopharmaceutical production in Korea for medical applications (S.J. Oh)
- Validation and quality control of radiopharmaceuticals in Korea (S.J. Lee)
- Hospital radiopharmacy compounding (J.H. Kang)
- *Molecular imaging (SPECT and PET) (K. Ziemons)

* indicates real-time lectures.

07/05/2022

The WCI Secretariat released 2022 WCI Monthly Newsletter May Issue: As a lead article of this issue, “International Standardization of Radiometric Methods as Applied to Industry and Environment” was written by J. Thereska, Prof. International Society for Tracer and Radiation Applications (ISTRA), Chair, Vienna, Austria.

His article discussed the recent ISO standardization projects initiated and supported by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in cooperation with the International Society for Tracer and Radiation Applications (ISTRA): ISO 23159 on Non-destructive testing, ISO 24460 on Measurement of Fluid Flow Rate in Closed Conduits, ISO 6366 on Leak testing in pressured vessels and underground pipelines using radioactive tracer methods, ISO 6640 on Determination of water-sediment mixture density in water bodies by using radiometric methods, etc.

In addition, he described the perspective of radiometric methods as ISO standards: Residence time distribution (RTD) measurement, Inter-well tracing in oil and geothermal fields, etc.

Finally, he concluded there is a need for ISO standards in applying radiometric technologies to industry and environment worldwide, etc.

In addition, the newsletter contains "Isotope-related News", "Sketches from the Secretariat", and "Future Conferences and Events chapter".

07/05/2022

The 11ICI Webinar Series 1 of 4 organized by Sylvia Fedoruk Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation in partnership with the University of Saskatchewan and Tourism Saskatoon took place on April 28, 2022, at 7 AM CST via Zoom.

The meeting dealt with “Demand and Supply of Isotopes Around the World - From Diverse Perspectives”.

The welcoming remarks were delivered by the 11ICI co-chairs: Lidia Matei, Corporate Business Officer, Fedoruk Centre, and Chary Rangacharyulu, Professor, University of Saskatchewan.

Jong Kyung Kim, President of the World Council on Isotopes (WCI) gave his opening remarks.

This meeting was moderated by William D. Magwood, IV, Director-General, OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA). Magwood gave a small talk on OECD’s standpoint regarding the demand and production capacity of medical isotopes.

Panelists presented:

“Demand and Supply of Isotopes Around the World” was presented by Amir R. Jalilian, Radioisotope & Radiopharmaceutical Chemist, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

“DoE Isotopes Program” was presented by Jehanne Gillo, Director of DOE Isotope Program, Department of Energy, United States.

“Trends Shaping Medical Isotopes Landscape: A General Perspective” was presented by Ram Mullur, Vice President Isotope Business, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, Canada.

“Production of medical isotopes in Europe – challenges and opportunities” was delivered Renata Mikołajczak, Director’s Plenipotentiary for Research and Scientific Cooperation, Radioisotope Centre, POLATOM, Poland.

“A South African perspective on Global Radioisotope supply” was presented by Pieter Louw, Group Executive Production, NTP, South Africa.

After the panel discussion and Q&A, the meeting ended with closing remarks given by William D. Magwood.

28/04/2022

You are invited to attend the 11th International Conference on Isotopes (11ICI) Webinar Series organized by Sylvia Fedoruk Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation in partnership with the University of Saskatchewan and Tourism Saskatoon.

11 ICI Webinar Series Part 1 of 4

Demand and Supply of Isotopes Around the World - From Diverse Perspectives
April 28, 2022
7am CST*

Via Zoom
7:00 AM Central Standard Time (US, Canada);
9:00 AM EDT; 3:00 PM (CEST);
1:00 PM (UTC)
please check the time for your zone
as it has been changed to Daylight Saving Time.

Final Program

7:00 AM – 7:02 Welcome remarks
Short introduction of 11ICI and Webinar Series

Lidia Matei
Corporate Business Officer, Fedoruk Centre
Chary Rangacharyulu
Professor, University of Saskatchewan
11 ICI Co-Chairs

7:02 – 7:04 Opening remarks and introduction

Part 1 of 11ICI webinar series and Moderator
Jong Kyung Kim,
President
World Council on Isotopes (WCI)

7:04 – 7:09 OECD’s standpoint regarding the demand and production capacity of medical isotopes

William D. Magwood,IV
Director General,
OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA)

Panel moderator

7:09 – 7:15 Demand and Supply of Isotopes Around the World

Amir R. Jalilian (recorded presentation)
Radioisotope & Radiopharmaceutical Chemist
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

7:15-7:21 DoE Isotopes Program
Jehanne Gillo
Director of DOE Isotope Program
Department of Energy, United States

7:21-7:27 Trends Shaping Medical Isotopes Landscape: A General Perspective
Ram Mullur
Vice President Isotope Business
Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, Canada

7:27-7:33 Production of medical isotopes in Europe – challenges and opportunities Renata Mikołajczak
Director’s Plenipotentiary for Research and Scientific Cooperation
Radioisotope Centre, POLATOM, Poland
(Chair Track 1/11ICI)

7:33-7:39 A South African perspective on Global Radioisotope supply
Pieter Louw
Group Executive Production
NTP, South Africa

7:39-7:54 Panel discussion

7:54-7:58 Q&A from public (via chat)

7:58-8:00 Closing Remarks
Moderator - William D. Magwood, IV
Registration is complimentary but you must pre-register!
For more information and to register, visit our website: https://www.11ici.org/april-28-2022

Saskatoon, Canada Thu, Apr 28, 2022 at 7:00 am CST
Ottawa, Canada Thu, Apr 28, 2022 at 9:00 am EDT
Washington DC, US Thu, Apr 28, 2022 at 9:00 am EDT
Brussels, Belgium Thu, Apr 28, 2022 at 3:00 pm CEST
Paris, France Thu, Apr 28, 2022 at 3:00 pm CEST
Seoul, South Korea Thu, Apr 28, 2022 at 10:00 pm KST
Pretoria, South Africa Thu, Apr 28, 2022 at 3:00 pm SAST
Corresponding UTC Thu, Apr 28, 2022 at 13:00

World Council on Isotopes

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