Manchester’s Wolfson Radiochemistry Facility Relaunched After 2020 Closure

Radiochemistry, the Wolfson Molecular Imaging Centre (WMIC), Manchester, is set to be relaunched according to the Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC). The centre is home to the multi-million pound ‘Cyclotron’, a type of particle accelerator invented by Ernest O. Lawrence in 1930, of which there are only a few in the UK. The facility will provide drug discovery biotechs and academic innovators with radiochemicals that are difficult to produce.

The main emphasis for MDC is on preclinical imaging. Still, they also provide both the design and production of radiotracers and their innovative imaging and drug discovery knowledge.

The collaboration with the University of Manchester adds to a prior foundation of commercial and grant-funded PET imaging projects’ accomplishment, fortifying the position of North West England as a front-runner in positron emission tomography (PET) radiochemistry and imaging in the UK.

This allows an opening for theranostics, which combines therapeutics and diagnostics in one bundle for image-guided therapy. This can make a significant modification in defining the result of treatment at a primary stage.

Chief Scientific Officer at MDC explained that “By reinvigorating this leading centre for radiochemistry, and combining it with MDC’s extensive drug discovery capabilities, we can transform preclinical science in the North West and across the nation.”

“Expertise and infrastructure with the University of Manchester’s expertise and heritage in radiochemistry creates a virtual centre-of-excellence and provides the only centralised radiochemistry facility in the region.”