On Launching a New Twenty-first Century Quarterly Journal, Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging.

Abstract

Any nuclear-medicine physician or scientist who historically traces the origin of nuclear medicine will encounter the name of Democritus to impress us with an inspiring vision. A disciple of Leucippus, Democritus was an esteemed philosopher-scientist, who introduced and developed the earliest concept of the atom in the late fifth/early fourth century BC. Curiously enough, the philosopher suffered from mental illness, which was cured by Hippocrates [1]. Thus, today’s nuclear medicine, with its influential prosperity, was remotely conceived by an atomist and a physician, and some 22 centuries elapsed before Robert Boyle, Antoine L. Lavoisier, and John Dalton refined the atomic concept afresh after the Renaissance [2]. The atom was so gestated to be born as the ‘radioactive celebrity’ of modern medicine in the mid-twentieth century when the cyclotron and atomic reactor were constructed to richly produce radioisotopes, along with the advent of gamma cameras, followed by SPECT and PET. Now these techniques are ardently being fused with anatomical imaging methods such as CT, MRI, and ultrasound, further exploring new horizons. Witnessing these great strides, the remarks pointed out by Sylvanus P. Thompson in 1897 [2] in praising the discovery of X-rays by Wilhelm C. Roentgen and radium by Marie and Pierre Curie hold true for nuclear medicine, too: “The discoverer is but the descendant of his scientific forefathers.” This is the way that nuclear medicine will grow eternally and it is hoped that Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (NMMI) will be a good messenger, faithful spreader and worthwhile archivist. Nuclear medicine has served, is serving, and will serve the needs of the sick by providing the unique qualitative and quantitative information on function, metabolism and molecular-genetic behavior that is characteristic of, and often specific to, organs and cells in normal and morbid conditions [3, 4]. The specificity and common value of nuclear medicine in diagnosing the diseases of the brain, heart, endocrine glands, musculoskeletal system, and other organs and organ systems are just one aspect of what have been achieved during the short period—still little more than half a century—after the Second World War. In addition, the use of potent radionuclides in the form of simple elements, salts, and pharmaceuticals have provided and will Yong-Whee Bahk, Honorary Editor