Diagnostic Molecular Imaging Probes
Development of improved "smart" diagnostic imaging agents
As the main objective of DiMI is to combine the use of different molecular imaging technologies (PET, SPECT, MRI, Optical imaging) in order to explore neurodegenerative, cardiovascular and inflammatory diseases including the monitoring of stem cell therapy, the consortium needs specific molecular imaging probes.
Although some of them have already been developed (existing diagnostic probes) detailed guidelines for their preparation are still needed to permit each member of the consortium to produce them efficiently and in the same way.
Other probes for a given target involved in a particular disease have still to be developed (novel diagnostic probes), starting from the chemical design to the pharmacological characterisation.
This non-invasive investigation of molecular targets implies:
- to identify the most relevant molecular targets
- to develop specific probes for imaging these targets using different modalities
- to select the best imaging modality for a given application
- to develop quantification methods for new probes
The major long-term goal of the jointly executed research activities of the imaging probes programme within DiMI is to develop (design, synthesis, characterisation) a “library” of probes for relevant targets for a given cardiovascular or neurodegenerative disease and for monitoring of gene expression using different modalities (MRI, SPECT and PET, optical imaging).
