Robert Schenter, physicist: He specialized in the production of radioisotopes in reactors for nuclear medicine. Much of nuclear medicine depends on a steady supply of an isotope called molybdenum-99—“Mo-99” for short. A by-product of nuclear fission, Mo-99 decays to produce another radioactive substance, technetium-99m, which is employed in more than 16 million nuclear imaging procedures every year in the United States alone, including sentinel node biopsies in cancer surgery, bone scans, and cardiac stress tests.
