Abstract
An automated system was developed for the routine preparation of carbon-11 ($^11C$) labeled radiopharmaceuticals, which consisted of three major parts including [$^11C$]methylation of the precursor with [$^11C$] iodomethane ($[^11C]CH_3I)$, purification of the desired product and formulation of the final $^11C$ labeled radiopharmaceutical. The whole system included seven three-way slider valves, eleven solenoid valves, four pneumatic cylinders, a HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatography) system and a rotary evaporator. Using this system, we investigated the radiochemical synthesis of L-[$methyl-^11C$]methionine, which is the most widely used amino acid in tumor PET (Positron Emission Tomography) studies. The overall operation took 3035 min including the production of $[^11C]CH_3I$ (10.5 min) and decay-corrected radiochemical yield was 25%. The automated system we described herein can be widely utilized for the preparation of many $^11C$ labeled radiopharinaceuticals and has been shown to be efficient, reliable and easy to operate.
