1. History
Our Institute has a history reaching back to more than 60 years. The Isotope Laboratory was founded by Professor Gyula Petrányi in 1958. The first PET Centre in Eastern and Central Europe was founded by the Medical University of Debrecen in 1994 on the premises of the Institute for Nuclear Research, Hungarian Academy of Sciences (ATOMKI). In 2006 the University of Debrecen integrated the two predecessors, the Department of Nuclear Medicine and the PET Centre into the Nuclear Medicine Institute, which was moved into a new building in 2009.
2. Main areas of care and specialties
Nuclear Medicine encompasses all the components of a full PET program (patient examinations, developments in radiochemistry and organic chemistry, production of GMP-conform radiopharmaceuticals, trials in cells and on small animal models, animal house).
- Nuclear medicine
- Radio-pharmacy
- Clinical radio physics
3. Types of medical care and services
- Manufacturing and marketing positron-emitter labelled radiopharmaceuticals
- Performing scientific research work in the field of Nuclear Medicine
- Teaching Nuclear Medicine in the undergraduate and graduate programs
- Providing professional and methodological support in the patient care supplied by external providers using radioisotopes for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes, as well as the provision of their supporting administrative, technical and economic activities
4. Technology and development projects
In 2005 a new building with a total useful floor area of 1,200 square meters was completed to house the Nuclear Medicine Institute.
Our state of the art equipment park includes
- devices required for digital autoradiography and the ~1 mm resolution in vivo imaging of small laboratory animals, for example our miniPET scanner, which is the result of an in-house development supported by the experts of the Institute for Nuclear Research, Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
- a Leica CM3600 cryomacrotome for large surface sectioning,
- patient examinations, which were outsourced in 2006, are currently performed with a Gemini TOF scanner.
Ervin Berényi M.D.
Director, Full Professor