Optimization of Radiochemical Reactions using Droplet Arrays

Current automated radiosynthesizers are designed to produce large clinical batches of radiopharmaceuticals. They not well suited for reaction optimization or novel radiopharmaceutical development since each data point involves significant reagent consumption, and contamination the apparatus requires time radioactive decay before next use. To address these limitations, a platform performing arrays miniature droplet-based reactions in parallel, confined within surface-tension trap on patterned polytetrafluoroethylene-coated silicon "chip", was developed. These chips enable rapid convenient studies parameters including concentrations, solvent, temperature time. This permits completion hundreds few days with minimal instead taking months using conventional radiosynthesizer.