half-life

Also known as half life, half-life period

AI overview

Half-life is the amount of time it takes for half of a radioactive substance to decay or break down. This concept matters because it allows scientists to predict how quickly radioactive materials will diminish over time and to determine the age of ancient objects.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Research

157,545 papers

Relevance of Half-Life in Drug Design.Journal of medicinal chemistry · 2018Smith DA, Beaumont K, Maurer TS et al.DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.7b00969
The αSynuclein half-life conundrum.ReviewNeurobiology of disease · 2024Masato A, Bubacco LDOI: 10.1016/j.nbd.2024.106524
The Practical Importance of Half-Life in Psychopharmacology.The Journal of clinical psychiatry · 2022Andrade CDOI: 10.4088/JCP.22f14584
Half-life extended biotherapeutics.ReviewExpert opinion on biological therapy · 2016Kontermann REDOI: 10.1517/14712598.2016.1165661
Enhanced antibody half-life improves in vivo activity.Nature biotechnology · 2010Zalevsky J, Chamberlain AK, Horton HM et al.DOI: 10.1038/nbt.1601
Half-life extension of therapeutics: Applications and mechanisms.ReviewThe Journal of pharmacology and experimental therapeutics · 2025Pathivada K, Glassman PMDOI: 10.1016/j.jpet.2025.103724
Plasma terminal half-life.ReviewJournal of veterinary pharmacology and therapeutics · 2004Toutain PL, Bousquet-Mélou ADOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2885.2004.00600.x
A long-half-life, high-affinity P-selectin inhibitor.Blood · 2021Gross PLDOI: 10.1182/blood.2021012302

via PubMed

Wikidata facts

Image: Halflife-sim.gif

Show 1 more fact

Commons category: Half times

Sources (2)

via Wikidata · CC0

~11 min read

Article

13 sections

Contents

Probabilistic nature
Formulas for half-life in exponential decay
Half-life and reaction orders
Zero order kinetics
First order kinetics
Second order kinetics
Decay by two or more processes
Examples
In non-exponential decay
In biology and pharmacology
See also
References
External links

{| class="wikitable" align=right ! Half-liveselapsed !! Fractionremaining !! colspan=2| Percentageremaining |- | 0 || ||align=right style="border-right-width: 0; padding-right:0"| 100||style="border-left-width: 0"| |- | 1 || ||align=right style="border-right-width: 0; padding-right:0"| 50||style="border-left-width: 0"| |- | 2 || ||align=right style="border-right-width: 0; padding-right:0"| 25||style="border-left-width: 0"| |- | 3 || ||align=right style="padding-right:0; border-right-width: 0"| 12||style="border-left-width: 0; padding-left:0"|.5 |- | 4 || ||align=right style="border-right-width: 0; padding-right:0"| 6||style="border-left-width: 0; padding-left:0"|.25 |- | 5 || || align=right style="border-right-width: 0; padding-right:0"|3||style="border-left-width: 0; padding-left:0"|.125 |- | 6 || || align=right style="border-right-width: 0; padding-right:0"|1||style="border-left-width: 0; padding-left:0"|.5625 |- | 7 || ||align=right style="border-right-width: 0; padding-right:0"| 0||style="border-left-width: 0; padding-left:0"|.78125 |-

|- | || || colspan=2| |}