Hans-Jürgen Machulla did his PhD thesis at the Research Center Jülich and the University in Cologne. Thereafter, he continued the research on reactions with Hot Atoms Nitrogen-13 and Carbon-11 in Brookhaven National Laboratories on Long Island, New York. In Germany thereafter, conceptional and organizational set-up of the PET-Centers in Jülich, Essen, Bad Oeynhausen/Bochum and Tübingen followed. At the Medical Faculty of the University Tübingen the Professor position for Radiopharmacy was sponsored by the Volkswagen Foundation as the first Professor´s Chair in Europe. Additional funding by the State of Baden-Württemberg and the University Tübingen completed the PET Center with the building for housing the cyclotron, radiochemistry labs, and the PET scanner.
R&D focused on radiosynthetic procedures, biological and clinical evaluation of radioactively labeled compounds as tracers in applying the Tracer Principle in international cooperation for which [18F]FLT was the first striking example.
Other activities were such as the recent ones e.g. member of the Commission for Radiopharmaceuticals of the Arzneibuch-Komission at BfArM in Bonn and Chair of the Group Compounding and Radiopharmaceutical Preparation at Europ. Pharmacopoea (EDQM), Council of Europe, in Strasbourg.