Radiological examinations are nowadays a standard component of modern medicinal diagnostics.
This is because the radiation dosage to patients has been steadily reduced since the first radiological examination was made in 1927. An important contribution in achieving this happy situation has been the employment of artificially produced radionuclides, whose half-lives lie between about 6 hours to 8 days. Previously employed radiopharmaceuticals have in general been exogenous, and so the usage of new radiopharmaceuticals, which bear chemical and biological similarities to the human body's own substances, is expected to lead to further improvements in radiological diagnostics. In the near future, attempts will be made to find methods to synthesize F-18 labelled sugars, amino acids, fatty acids and hormones. The methods are being developed here so as to enable the employment of these radiopharmaceuticals in nuclear medicine in Marburg.