Grant: Project Grant

Probes have been used to diagnose cancer in biopsy slices for several decades. Positron emission tomography (PET) imaging is a non-invasive approach to image cancer in a living patient. PET uses small amounts of a radioactive isotope for imaging. Ideally, the a probe could be radiolabeled for PET imaging to provide new, cutting edge probes where the SAME molecule is used diagnostically both to investigate disease spread in the patient using PET thereby characterizing the disease and possible outcomes. Of various radioisotopes for PET, 18F-fluorine is preferred because multiple human doses can be produced on-demand production in 25 hospitals across Canada. Nevertheless, numerous challenges have prevented the use of 18F for labeling dual mode tracers. We have recently overcome this challenge by use of a proprietary trifluoroborate that enables labeling of complex molecules with 18F-fluoride in a single step. Our preliminary data has led us to hypothesize that this method can be used to develop the next generation of bench-to-clinic probes for use in both visible staining and PET imaging and predicting outcomes.