Positron emission tomography (PET) imaging provides the most accurate and sensitive detection of cancer in patients. Yet PET is challenged by cumbersome methods that impede the clinical production of PET imaging agents and diminish their distribution and use. A critical unmet need for PET imaging is access to user-friendly methods to simplify and speed up time-sensitive radiosynthesis to deliver imaging agents to clinics.
Dr. Perrin and team have invented a chemical tag that lets chemists turn any molecule into a PET imaging agent. Now, Dr. Perrin will deploy this method to develop commercial products for imaging prostate cancer, which affects 23% of Canadian men and demands the use of PET imaging for early detection.
These tags create novel prostate cancer-specific probes which allow tumours to be labeled in record time and in a user-friendly manner for clinical radiosynthesis, and provide superior pre-clinical mouse images. These must be tested and evaluated before progressing to human trials and clinical production.
This innovation could allow prostate cancer to be detected earlier and better, increasing cure rates and the long-term survival rates of this deadly and common disease.