UWM Grads Help Provide Domestic Source of Critical Medical Diagnostic Material
A UW-Milwaukee chemistry professor and graduates of his lab are helping two Wisconsin companies produce a vital material that was until recently available only from foreign sources.
The material is molybdenum-99, the parent of technetium-99m, the most widely used radioisotope in the world for diagnostic medical imaging, according to UWM Chemistry Professor Mark Dietz. (The materials are often abbreviated as Mo-99 and Tc-99m.)
About 10 years ago, after repeated disruption to supplies of Mo-99 from abroad, the Department of Energy began to encourage the development of new approaches to the production of this critical radioisotope in the U.S.
A UW-Milwaukee chemistry professor and graduates of his lab are helping two Wisconsin companies produce a vital material that was until recently available only from foreign sources.
