Posted on : Tuesday 14 September 2021

Job title : Emploi Post-doc/ Organic chemistry/Radiochemistry and process/Chemistry engineering

Organization : The development of personalized molecular imaging with Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is stimulating the development and manufacturing of original radiopharmaceuticals, which are however today limited by the constraints related to the radiosynthesis devices. In this context, the Service Hospitalier Frédéric Joliot (SHFJ) of the CEA is participating to the development of a robotic system for radiopharmaceutical manufacturing at the microfluidic scale. This project is coordinated by the PMB company.

The project will take place in part at SHFJ within the "Development of Radiopharmaceuticals and Imaging Agents" group (leader: B. Kuhnast) of BioMaps research unit (Head: Pr. V. Lebon). The SHFJ is a preclinical and clinical multimodal molecular imaging platform dedicated to radioisotope, MRI and ultrasound imaging. It is equipped with organic chemistry laboratories, 2 cyclotrons for the production of fluorine-18, and carbon-11 and radiochemistry laboratories as well as preclinical and clinical imagers.

PMB is a company based in France, with a long-standing expertise in brazing dissimilar materials and specialized in the design and manufacture of complex assemblies and subassemblies (RF and beamline components, components for X-ray tubes, ceramic-metal assemblies…), as well as particle accelerators and disruptive medical systems (a PET radiopharmaceutical system combining a cyclotron & radiochemistry and a FLASH radiotherapy system).

Mission : The project is multidisciplinary and involves organic chemistry, radiochemistry of fluorine18, carbon-11 and radiometals and partly chemical engineering for the automation of the manufacturing processes. The project has 2 main objectives :
• the development of new radiosyntheses on a dedicated R&D module: evaluation of different reaction conditions to incorporate the radioactive isotope on the target molecule, protection/deprotection of sensitive chemical functions, development of purification methods, microfluidic transfer automation ...
• the optimization and validation of the fully automated robotic manufacturing system, from the production of the isotope to the syringe on the iMiGINE prototype installed at the SHFJ.
Programing and piloting the robot will first take place at PMB, without radioactivity, before being transposed to the system installed at the SHFJ. The project is conducted within a network of laboratories involved in the development of the iMiGINE system and is financed by the French Plan de Relance.
The proposed contract is for 12 months renewable once.

Applicants : Students with a PhD in organic chemistry, radiochemistry or chemical engineering interested in the automation of synthetic processes and the chemistry / medicine interface are strongly encouraged to apply. The PhD must have been obtained in 2019, 2020 or 2021 imperatively.

More info :
http://www.biomaps.universite-paris-saclay.fr/
https://www.pmb-alcen.com/fr

Locality : Service hospitalier Frédéric Joliot

Remuneration :

Degrees required : PhD in organic chemistry/radiochemistry or chemical engineering

Skills required :

Contact : bertrand.kuhnast@cea.fr lemeunier@pmb-alcen.com