Radiochemistry Undergoing Renaissance at WSU

PULLMAN, Wash. — The Palouse might not have a lot in common with the rolling hills of Tuscany, but just as Florence, Italy, was the birthplace of the Renaissance, Pullman is becoming home to the rebirth of radiochemistry.

Today there are seven graduate students in radiochemistry at Washington State University, up from four in 2002, making it one of the largest programs in the country. It is second only to the University of Missouri, Columbia, and gaining fast. Next year, depending on funding, there may be as many as 15 graduate students in WSU’s program.

Nationally, enrollment in radiochemistry programs — the chemistry of radioactive elements — peaked about 30 years ago, when about 35 chemistry doctorates were awarded annually to graduates who had specialized in radiochemistry. Since then, however, enrollment has declined dramatically and most programs have folded altogether. Last year fewer than 10 graduate degrees were conferred on radiochemists nationwide.

But WSU is either bucking the trend or ahead of the curve. When Sue Clark, chair of the department of chemistry, joined the WSU faculty as an environmental chemist in 1996, only one of her colleagues, Roy Filby, was a radiochemist, and he has since retired. Now there are two more — professor Ken Nash and assistant professor Paul Benny.

Working with the department of chemistry, the College of Sciences and the Nuclear Radiation Center, Clark was able to hire them, she said, because of grants from the Department of Energy. While WSU is paying the faculty salaries, the DOE funding allowed Nash and Benny to get their labs up and running so they can compete for other grants. Since joining WSU, Clark has generated $9 million in extramural funding.

Nash spent 25 years as a top research scientist at Argonne National Laboratories (Chicago) and the U.S. Geological Survey (Denver) prior to joining the faculty at WSU. Like Clark, he is determined to open the world of radiochemistry to a new generation of scientists, most effectively by including it in general chemistry. That’s when you have to reach students, he said, to get them excited about the possibilities of a career in radiochemistry.

Over the past 30 years, work with radioactive elements has led to great advances in medical diagnosis, cancer treatment, food production, pest eradication, materials development and energy production, even while support for radiochemistry programs has dwindled. But, without young scientists to take over when senior scientists retire, that progress might stop or move overseas.

And, said Nash, the United States still has problems with nuclear waste disposal to deal with, as well as the need for a home-grown source of energy.

“The energy supply problem in this country hasn’t been solved,” he said. “It’s been postponed.” Along with making nuclear power plants more efficient, safe and clean, Nash said, radiochemistry research is crucial to the creation of a hydrogen economy. Nash recently received two new grants for $600,000 from DOE for his work.

The DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration is trying to boost radiochemistry programs in the United States. According to a December 2004 newsletter, “Preserving scientific know-how (replete with the potential for R&D and innovation) in this crucial area should be a national security issue.” The NNSA believes radiochemistry is “the key to a nuclear ‘CSI toolkit,’ offering clues to track would-be nuclear proliferators.”

Another federal agency concerned about radiochemistry education is the National Institutes of Health. Approximately one-third of all medical diagnostic procedures conducted in the United States use radiation.

Benny, a radiochemist from the University of Zurich and University of Missouri, joined the faculty in 2004 and is studying 99Tc to diagnose and treat cancer cells. For prostate cancer, Benny is interested in developing targeted radiopharmaceuticals that selectively bind to androgen, unique to the cancerous cells, and then kill only those cells.