Rare earth elements (REE) in biology and medicine

Abstract

This survey reports on topics that were presented at the workshop on "Challenges with Rare Earth Elements. The Periodic Table at work for new Science & Technology" hold at the Academia dei Lincei in November 2019. The herein reported materials refer to presentations dealing with studies and applications of rare earth elements (REE) in several areas of Biology and Medicine. All together they show the tremendous impact REE have in relevant fields of living systems and highlight, on one hand, the still existing knowledge gap for an in-depth understanding of their function in natural systems as well as the very important role they already have in providing innovative scientific and technological solutions in a number of biomedical areas and in fields related to the assessment of the origin of food and on their manufacturing processes. On the basis of the to-date achievements one expects that new initiatives will bring, in a not too far future, to a dramatic increase of our understanding of the REE involvement in living organisms as well as a ramp-up in the exploitation of the peculiar properties of REE for the design of novel applications in diagnostic procedures and in the setup of powerful medical devices. This scenario calls the governmental authorities for new responsibilities to guarantee a continuous availability of REE to industry and research labs together with providing support to activities devoted to their recovery/recycling.

Mass Cytometry for the Characterization of Individual Cell Types in Ovarian Solid Tumors

“…1). Although not used in our current ovarian mass cytometry studies, isotopes of cadmium, platinum, ruthenium, osmium, and tellurium have been used for antibody labeling and barcoding [19][20][21][22].…”

The periodic table of the elements: the search for transactinides and beyond

“…As an example, from 238 U isotope to the 252 No isotope, the addition of 10 protons and 4 neutrons reduces T ½ by a factor 10 16 . Further studies on rare earth have been reported in (Ascenzi et al 2020).…”

Constraints to rare earth elements supply diversification: Evidence from an industry survey

“…REEs play a vital role also in electrical and electronic equipment such as mobile phones, hard disk drives and fluorescent and LED lamps (Balaram, 2019), defense applications (Mancheri et al, 2013), Catlaysts (Schmid, 2019), high tech (e.g. Haxel et al, 2002) and pharmaceuticals and medicine (Ascenzi et al, 2020). Presence of REEs in living systems and their mobilisation could be used to design niche diagnostic procedures (Ascenzi et al, 2020), though this is still very much in its infancy.…”