Radiofluorination and Radiopharmaceuticals for PET Imaging

• High-speed, highly efficient method to produce radiofluorinated compounds
• Fast reaction time and mild reaction conditions expand the range of biologically relevant compounds that can be fluorinated
• Suitable for preparation of radiopharmaceuticals that cannot be easily made through conventional means, such as ¹⁸F-labeled electron-rich aromatic compounds (e.g., ¹⁸F-L-DOPA)
• Short reaction time limits isotope decay, leading to higher-quality PET images
• Much more cost effective that current methods for radiofluorination
• A rapid (15-min), highly sensitive (sub-picogram) assay allows detection of background contamination by non-radioactive anions prior to radiotracer synthesis

• Preparation of radiopharmaceuticals for clinical diagnosis of neurological conditions, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other conditions
• Production of ¹⁸F-labeled drug analogues to study drug behavior in the body

• Sun, H. and DiMagno, S.G. "Anhydrous Tetrabutylammonium Fluoride.” J. Am. Chem Soc. (2005), 127:250-251.
• Sun, H. and DiMagno, S.G. "Room-Temperature Nucleophilic Aromatic Fluorination: Experimental and Theoretical Studies.” Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. (2006), 45:2720-2725.
• Sun, H. and DiMagno, S.G. "Fluoride relay: a new concept for the rapid preparation of anhydrous nucleophilic fluoride salts from KF.” Chem Commun. (2007), 5:528-529.
• Sun, H., Koch, A.S., and DiMagno, S.G. "Rapid Preparation of Fluorinated Aromatic Heterocycles.” ACS Symposium Series. (2009), 1003:85-104.