The University of Missouri has launched an initiative to build a new, larger research reactor, NextGen MURR. The university's existing MU Research Reactor - in operation for more than half a century - is the highest-powered university research reactor in the USA and is currently the country's only producer of certain medical radioisotopes.

All major global molybdenum-99 production facilities are now using low-enriched uranium targets instead of proliferation-sensitive highly-enriched uranium following the completion of work to convert Belgium's National Institute of Radioelements medical isotope production facility.

The production of cobalt-60 is critical to healthcare and, with demand soaring, the challenge is to expand supply, writes Martin Comben from the International Irradiation Association.

President Luis Arce Catacora has delivered the first fluorodeoxyglucose radiopharmaceuticals produced in Bolivia's new Cyclotron Preclinical Radiopharmacy Complex to patients of the Nuclear Medicine and Radiotherapy Centres of El Alto and Santa Cruz.

A construction licence has been granted by the Authority for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection for the Pallas research reactor in Petten, the Netherlands. The new reactor will replace the existing High Flux Reactor.

A ground-breaking ceremony has been held in Mol in north-east Belgium to mark the start of construction of a facility to recycle radioactive residues from the production of medical radioisotopes. The RECUMO facility - which will recover uranium - is scheduled to begin operating in 2026.

Ontario Power Generation's nuclear power plant is set to produce molybdenum-99 after Laurentis Energy Partners and BWXT Medical Ltd completed the installation and initial commissioning of an innovative isotope system.

The aim is to have production lines operating at the plant in Obninsk by 2025, supplying products for the diagnosis and treatment of patients, including a wide range of cancers. Rosatom says it will ensure Russia's sovereignty in the production of radiopharmaceuticals.

The Welsh government is funding a technical feasibility study and outline business plan to secure future supplies of medical isotopes by developing an Advanced Radioisotope Technology for Health Utility Reactor, known as Project ARTHUR.

The UK Space Agency and the National Nuclear Laboratory are to collaborate on the world's first space battery powered by americium-241. The isotope will be extracted from used nuclear fuel stored at the Sellafield site in Cumbria.

NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes' facility in Beloit, Wisconsin, has been built with financial and technical support from the US Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. It will produce molybdenum-99 without using highly enriched uranium.

The UK's First Light Fusion plans to build a 60 MW pilot power plant based on its unique projectile fusion technology to prove the integrated engineering for electricity generation and the production of tritium. It has partnered with Canadian Nuclear Laboratories to design a system for extracting tritium from the reactor.