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How do I become a Nuclear Pharmacist?
I am a highschool junior originally interested in compound pharmacy, but as I did a bit more research I saw Nuclear Pharmacy. I've never heard of it before and I just want to know if anyone has any information about the job and how they got to that position.
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Mary’s Answer
First complete a 6 to 7 year program for Pharmacy. And then I would advise gaining experience in a hospital setting before getting a board certification in nuclear pharmacy. It’s probably a 10 year proposition altogether.
Thank you so much for the advice.
Evie
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Joseph’s Answer
I'm not aware of the ins-and-outs of pharmacy work, but when it comes to nuclear medicine techniques, there's a big crossover into my work in radiation measurement physics, so I've got a few thoughts about roles like this, but you probably also want to take more specific advice from someone more from a medical and pharma perspective.
Nuclear medicine uses radiopharmaceuticals in a few different ways - especially for diagnostic imaging as well as therapeutical uses like killing cancer cells. Different purposes require different types of radiation - common examples include beta+ emitting nuclides used for PET imaging, gamma-emitters for SPECT, and alpha-emitters for targeted therapy purposes. You also want things that are radioactive enough to achieve the desired result, but not linger around to damage things they don't need to - so you generally use things with relatively short half-lives. Things like F-18, Tc-99m, I-131, and Lu-177 are commonly used in various nuclear medicine contexts, often compounded into molecules that seek out particular organs - like 18F-FDG which shows how sugars are used in the body. This means that unlike regular drugs that can be prepared well before being needed, the preparation and use cycle of radiopharmaceuticals has to be much shorter, so they can be used before they decay away.
Therefore, the work of nuclear pharmacists and radiopharmaceutical technicians involves receiving radionuclides within a very short timeframe of them being produced at a research reactor or cyclotron, binding them into the appropriate compound for the desired purpose, measuring the exact amount of activity (taking account of the fact that it's constantly decaying away), and getting it ready for its medical use.
In terms of how to get into such a role; it's a discipline that will require quite a diverse set of knowledge and skills from across the sciences - you'll need the much of the same understanding of biology, medicine, and chemistry as you'd need for compounding pharmacy, but also you'll need understanding of some of the physics of radiation, nuclear reactions and radiation protection - a good chunk of the same knowledge I use as a radiation physicist.
At a high school level, that means you'll want to have a broad focus across all the mathematics and science subjects. At high school level it's more about building a basic understanding of those subjects rather than learning much specific knowledge around anything specifically radiopharmaceutical - that will come later. However, I do recommend reading around the subject in your spare time, and maybe watching some online videos about related topics.
As you get towards college/university, you'll gradually specialise toward the subject - I suspect you can approach it from a few different angles, either pursuing a specific medicine or pharmacy qualification, or going down the route more of a general science degree (biology / chemistry / biochem), and specialising later. The exact paths that are open can depend on the certification requirements in your area and admissions requirements for the necessary specific qualifications, so you'll want to check for what the professional body is for nuclear pharmacists is in your country/state, and see what they say about the degrees or qualifications you need.
My experience is of a slightly different route - I did an undergrad physics degree and then a postgrad nuclear physics and engineering Masters. While I was studying the nuclear Masters, I shared a lot of classes with another course for nuclear medicine physicists, so I know in my part of the world, a physics route is possible for parts of nuclear medicine - although I think my classmates there went into other areas of nuclear medicine like radiotherapy physics rather than going into radiopharmacy - my gut feel is that nuclear pharma roles would be more suited to approach from a chemistry or medicine background.
Research the exact qualifications and certifications needed by the appropriate professional body in your area
Use some of your free time to read up and/or watch videos around nuclear medicine, radiopharmaceuticals, and chemistry in general - Periodic Videos has a lot of good chemistry content, and Tom Scott had an interesting video on the Pneumatic rabbit line from TRIUMPH to a nearby hospital
Nuclear medicine uses radiopharmaceuticals in a few different ways - especially for diagnostic imaging as well as therapeutical uses like killing cancer cells. Different purposes require different types of radiation - common examples include beta+ emitting nuclides used for PET imaging, gamma-emitters for SPECT, and alpha-emitters for targeted therapy purposes. You also want things that are radioactive enough to achieve the desired result, but not linger around to damage things they don't need to - so you generally use things with relatively short half-lives. Things like F-18, Tc-99m, I-131, and Lu-177 are commonly used in various nuclear medicine contexts, often compounded into molecules that seek out particular organs - like 18F-FDG which shows how sugars are used in the body. This means that unlike regular drugs that can be prepared well before being needed, the preparation and use cycle of radiopharmaceuticals has to be much shorter, so they can be used before they decay away.
Therefore, the work of nuclear pharmacists and radiopharmaceutical technicians involves receiving radionuclides within a very short timeframe of them being produced at a research reactor or cyclotron, binding them into the appropriate compound for the desired purpose, measuring the exact amount of activity (taking account of the fact that it's constantly decaying away), and getting it ready for its medical use.
In terms of how to get into such a role; it's a discipline that will require quite a diverse set of knowledge and skills from across the sciences - you'll need the much of the same understanding of biology, medicine, and chemistry as you'd need for compounding pharmacy, but also you'll need understanding of some of the physics of radiation, nuclear reactions and radiation protection - a good chunk of the same knowledge I use as a radiation physicist.
At a high school level, that means you'll want to have a broad focus across all the mathematics and science subjects. At high school level it's more about building a basic understanding of those subjects rather than learning much specific knowledge around anything specifically radiopharmaceutical - that will come later. However, I do recommend reading around the subject in your spare time, and maybe watching some online videos about related topics.
As you get towards college/university, you'll gradually specialise toward the subject - I suspect you can approach it from a few different angles, either pursuing a specific medicine or pharmacy qualification, or going down the route more of a general science degree (biology / chemistry / biochem), and specialising later. The exact paths that are open can depend on the certification requirements in your area and admissions requirements for the necessary specific qualifications, so you'll want to check for what the professional body is for nuclear pharmacists is in your country/state, and see what they say about the degrees or qualifications you need.
My experience is of a slightly different route - I did an undergrad physics degree and then a postgrad nuclear physics and engineering Masters. While I was studying the nuclear Masters, I shared a lot of classes with another course for nuclear medicine physicists, so I know in my part of the world, a physics route is possible for parts of nuclear medicine - although I think my classmates there went into other areas of nuclear medicine like radiotherapy physics rather than going into radiopharmacy - my gut feel is that nuclear pharma roles would be more suited to approach from a chemistry or medicine background.
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This was super helpful, thank you!
Evie