A team of PPPL scientists has won the 2016 Edison Patent Award for inventing an on-demand method to create a badly needed medical isotope used to diagnose conditions such as cancer and heart disease.

Receiving the award were Charles Gentile, head of the Tritium Systems Group at PPPL, George Ascione, head of the Health Physics Division, and Adam Cohen, Deputy Undersecretary for Science and Energy at DOE in the Obama administration, who was deputy director for operations at PPPL when he worked on the technology.

“We’re gratified to receive this award,” Gentile said. “There was a lot of work that went into this and we’re just happy that we can potentially make a positive impact on helping people in the world who would not necessarily have access to this diagnostic technology.”