Contact

Daniel Butscher

d.butscherAthzdr.de
Phone: +49 351 260 3154

Ph.D. topics


Spectroscopic investigations of the influence of various decorporation agents on the speciation of uranium(VI) in the biofluids of the human digestive system


Ph.D. student:
Daniel Butscher
Supervisor:
Prof. Dr. Thorsten Stumpf, Dr. Astrid Barkleit (HZDR)
Department:
Surface Processes
Period:
12/2020–11/2023


This work is part of the RADEKOR project. The increasing use of radionuclides (RN) increases the risk of accidents and thus the release of radionuclides into the environment. These accumulate in the biosphere and finally in the human food chain. If RNs are ingested through food or beverages, they pose a potential health risk due to their radio- and chemotoxicity. Therefore, it is necessary to know the biokinetic processes as well as the speciation of RNs after ingestion to develop and improve specific methods for decorporation. When RNs are ingested orally, they first come into contact and interact with the biofluids of the digestive tract. However, little is known to date about the speciation and biochemical behavior of most actinides in the gastrointestinal tract. Furthermore, only diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA) is approved as a decorporation agent. However, this has only a very low oral activity and is almost ineffective in the decorporation of uranium(VI) as well as neptunium(IV,V). Therefore, it is necessary to develop decorporation agents that are orally active and have a high affinity to the RNs.

The aim of this work is to study in vitro the speciation of uranium(VI) in the biofluids of the human digestive system (saliva, gastric juice, bile and pancreatic juice) and in the gastrointestinal segments stomach and small intestine as well as in the whole synthetic digestive tract in the presence and absence of various potential decorporation agents. Furthermore, the influence of U(VI) on kidney cells in the presence and absence of decorporation agents will be investigated.
For this purpose, different methods such as cryo-TRLFS, NMR as well as FT-IR spectroscopy will be used.

The work is part of the project "RADEKOR" (Speciation and transfer of radionuclides in the human organism especially taking into account decorporation agents), which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research under contract number 02NUK057A.