Projects

Molecular Imaging in small animals using novel PET tracers

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is an imaging modality that allows visualization of physiological, biochemical and pharmacological functions in living animals and humans using radiopharmaceuticals labeled with positron emitting nuclides. Direct quantitative information on the pharmacokinetics of drugs, their therapeutic and toxic effects can be obtained. Commonly used positron emitting radionuclides are oxygen-15, nitrogen-13, carbon-11 and fluorine-18 with half-lives of 2, 10, 20 and 110 minutes, respectively. Other longer-lived positron emitting isotopes such as bromine-76, and copper-64 are also sometimes employed. Until recently, PET studies were limited to humans and large animals such as dogs, monkeys and pigs due to the spatial resolution of the existing PET scanners. Now, new commercial PET scanners fully dedicated to small laboratory animals such as mice and rats are available. A specific advantage of using small animal PET scanners is the possibility to study animal models of disease, perform fast, dynamic studies and also longitudinal studies to follow disease progression in the same animal. The main goal of this group is the development of specific PET radioligands for diagnostic application in neurology, oncology and cardiology.

Specific projects are:

• Development of high affinity and selective PET radiopharmaceuticals for imaging metabotropic glutamate receptor subtype 5 (mGluR5)

• Fluorine-18 labeling of folic acid derivatives for the imaging of folate receptor-positive tumors

• Synthesis and evaluation of fluorine-18 labeled C6 pyrimidine derivatives for monitoring herpes simplex virus 1 thymidine kinase gene (HSV1tk) expression

• Development of new PET radiopharmaceuticals for the imaging of atherosclerotic plaques

• Standardization of PET imaging experiments in rodents

• “Drug development” and new fluorine-18 labeling strategies in collaboration with pharmaceutical industry

• GMP-validation and production of new PET radiopharmaceuticals for human use

• Biopharmacy

Keywords:

Molecular Imaging, PET radiopharmaceuticals, Drug Development, GMP-validation