Board of Radiation and Isotope Technology

The application of radioisotopes in healthcare is one of the prominent peaceful applications of atomic energy. Natural radioactivity was discovered by Henri Becquerel in 1896 and subsequently radioactive elements radium and polonium were discovered by Madam Curie in 1898. The value of treatment of cancerous conditions by radioactivity of radium was first demonstrated in 1901. Henri Alexandre Danlos and Eugene Bloch attempted treatment of tuberculosis skin lesions by placing radium in contact in the same year. In 1913 Frederick Proescher published the first study on the intravenous injection of radium for therapy of various diseases. Herrman Blumgart and Soma Weiss performed the first application of radioactive tracers in medical research in a study of the velocity of circulating blood in 1925. But the effective use of radioactivity in healthcare application had to wait the invention of artificial radioactivity by J.F Joliot-Curie and Irene Joliot-Curie in Paris in 1934 and production of radioisotopes by cyclotron invented by Ernest O. Lawrence in Berkeley in 1930 and by nuclear reactor demonstrated by Enrico Fermi and co-workers in Rom