A one-day satellite workshop was organized to coincide with the 17(th) International Symposium on Radiopharmaceutical Sciences held in Aachen, Germany, April 30-May 4, 2007. The workshop, ''Production and application of non-standard' PET nuclides'', was held on Sunday April 29, 2007 at the Eurogress Aachen and was organized by J. Lewis, PhD, L. Tang, and M. Welch, PhD. The workshop was designed for the radiopharmaceutical community discussing the production, use and dissemination of the ''non-standard'' PET nuclides. The definition of ''non-standard'' positron emission tomography (PET) nuclides included (45)Ti, (60)Cu, (61)Cu, (64)Cu, (66)Ga, (72)As, (74)As, (76)Br, (86)Y, (89)Zr, (94)mTc and (124)I. The workshop was supported by the grant Research Resource for Cancer Applications (R24 CA86307) funded by the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health. The workshop was attended by over 110 scientists and engineers from over 20 countries from all over the world and was designed with an open forum style to allow for discussions and interactions by all participants. All of the invited speakers were asked to make a contribution to this edition of the Quarterly Journal of Nuclear Medicine. The individual articles following this introduction are reviews of their area of expertise and the current state-of-the-art. This introduction briefly describes the role of the workshop, the aims and the general outcome. Also, the translation of these nuclides to the clinic, perhaps the most important goal of this work is discussed in this introductory article.