Micro-Dose Calibrator for Pre-clinical Radiotracer Assays

Molecular imaging is a disease-specific targeting modality that promises much more accurate diagnoses of serious diseases such as cancer and infections. Agents are being continually developed with a view to clinical translation, with several such therapies requiring measurement of very small doses. Currently, there is no way of accurately measuring small amounts of radioactivity used in many pre-clinical tracer studies, as on-the-market commercial dose calibrators measure at too high a dose range, typically at 10-1000 µCi and higher. Using such commercial calibrators to estimate micro-doses (0.01-10 µCi) results in unavoidable and up to ± 20% measurement errors. Alternatively, well-counters that can measure small doses are not suited for measurements of doses greater than 1 µCi, resulting in a coverage gap (1-10 µCi), a critical range for bio-distribution studies, cell binding studies, immune cell labeling techniques, and α-based therapies.

To solve the problem of measuring a wider range of radioactivity doses, and without the need of a volumetric correction, the NCI Molecular Imaging Program invented a device (see images below) that can accurately measure radioactivity doses between 0.1-100 µCi,  with 1% error. The device is a working prototype and requires collaboration to manufacture it. NCI seeks parties to commercialize this technology through collaborative co-development or licensing.

Video abstract: New and improved micro dose-calibrator designed to accurately measure radioactive doses in the range of 50 nCi to 100 µCi with 99% precision, useful in radio-ligand bio-distribution studies, cell binding studies, immune cell labeling techniques, and α-based therapies.