RICHLAND, Wash.-Securing a domestic supply of radium-226 (Ra-226) is a strategic priority for the United States, and a new interagency effort is delivering results. The Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Isotope R&D and Production (IRP), within the Office of Science and the Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has recovered significant quantities of a rare and valuable feedstock material used for medical radioisotope production, Ra-226, from obsolete materials that were stored as radiological waste at NIST facilities. This Ra-226 material will be used to support several cancer-fighting therapies, directly impacting the lives of everyday Americans.
"Recovering and repurposing these waste materials is key to strengthening a secure, resilient domestic medical isotope supply chain," said Christopher Landers, Director of IRP. "By working in partnership with NIST and leveraging the capabilities of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and the National Laboratory system, we are converting previously unused materials into a strategic resource that supports U.S. leadership in cancer therapy and radioisotope production while improving safety for workers and removing long term hazards for facilities."
The United States faces a critical need to expand and ensure robust domestic supplies of key medical isotopes that underpin next-generation cancer therapies and other high-impact applications. At the same time, legacy radiological waste materials, once essential to science and medicine, remain in storage across the country and represent an untapped strategic resource. This effort directly addresses both challenges by converting legacy waste into valuable domestic feedstock.
In the United States, Ra-226 brachytherapy sources served as the pioneering medical tool for treating localized cancers, allowing oncologists to deliver targeted radiation directly into tumors. NIST's vital purpose in this medical ecosystem was to act as the nation's ultimate measuring authority by maintaining the primary U.S. radioactivity standards. By carefully calibrating these radioactive seeds against NIST's national benchmarks, the U.S. medical system ensured that hospitals across the country delivered accurate, consistent, and safe radiation doses to cancer patients.
Radium-226 treatments have been replaced by modern brachytherapy using safer, short-lived isotopes like Iridium-192 and Iodine-125, alongside highly precise external radiation technologies that can target tumors from outside the body without requiring surgical implants. Once there was no use in the medical areas, the NIST seeds became unwanted materials that had no easy outlet to routine waste streams.
Through this collaboration, IRP and NIST have removed this burden from NIST facilities while securing a critical domestic supply of Ra-226. This work is part of a broader IRP effort to identify, recover, and repurpose legacy Ra-226 inventories from domestic and international sources, reflecting a coordinated federal strategy to reduce radiological liabilities while strengthening U.S. leadership in radioisotope production.
Under IRP direction, PNNL developed and executed technical capabilities to enable scalable recovery operations across diverse sites and material forms, including the safe material handling, packaging, and transport of the NIST Ra-226. The recovered material has now been transferred to PNNL for processing and use as feedstock.
Safe shipping key to converting waste to cancer treatment
PNNL developed a specially designed Type A shipping cask and special form capsule to enable the safe recovery and transport of Ra-226 from sites across the United States and internationally. The new shipping cask will enable PNNL researchers to safely recover what had been useless medical waste and convert it into a usable precursor for nuclear medicine.
"These materials were very well-characterized and NIST has impeccable facility controls, infrastructure, and highly skilled staff in place," said Matt Fountain, PNNL's project manager on the effort. "The therapeutic promise of actinium-225 is significant, and the limits on supply have direct impacts on the ability for cancer patients to access life-saving treatments. By leveraging existing Ra-226, we can increase the domestic production capacity of actinium-225."
In this initial test, the team designed and fabricated cask and material handling tools that are flexible enough to be applied in widely varying configurations at remote recovery sites. They created site survey and planning documents to mitigate risk and maximize efficiency in coordinating between PNNL and the remote site.
Through mockups at PNNL, the team gained proficiency with the special extension tools, temporary shielding, choregraphed handling, and special form closure steps needed to safely manage the process. The combined PNNL and NIST teams later safely performed the same steps with real Ra-226 at NIST.
"The mockup efforts were crucial to developing a smooth and efficient process," said Jamin Trevino, a PNNL leader in the on-site efforts. "We were able to test procedures without the risk of radiation exposure to be confident in our approach. When we finally were working with the Ra-226 samples, we knew exactly how to operate."
This demonstration at NIST validated the developed processes, documentation, and tools for future use in remote site recovery of Ra-226. The devices have been shipped back to PNNL for recovery, purification, dispensing, and subsequent internal use or shipping of purified Ra-226 to customers based on requests to IRP's National Isotope Development Center.
