UCLA researchers develop new PET scanning probe that will allowing monitoring of the imm...(opment of the probe is uniquely suited t...)
opment of the probe is uniquely suited to UCLA's collaborative strengths. Researchers from the cancer center, the Broad stem cell center and the Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging took part in the study. The PET scanner was invented by UCLA's Michael Phelps, also a co-author on this study.
The work by Witte and his colleagues was prompted by the desire to add to a short list of probes now used in PET scanning and to develop new probes that monitor different molecular functions than the current probes.
"What we wanted to do was to develop new ways to look inside a living organism and gather as much information as we can about the immune system," said Caius Radu, an assistant professor of molecular and medical pharmacology, a Jonsson Cancer Center researcher and the first author of the study. "We wanted to know how cells move from one site in the body to another and find a way to trace them to tumors."
In previous studies, Witte and other UCLA researchers were able to track the immune system as it recognized and responded to cancer. But in those studies, the cells had to be modified with "reporter" genes that sequestered a specifically designed PET probe that allowed scientists to monitor them. The new probe doesn't require modified cells, making it easier and less expensive to use and giving it far broader applications than existing probes. In addition to modeling and measuring the immune system, those applications include stratifying different types of cancers and their response to therapy, defining the level of immune response in both normal and pathological situations and helping to determine whether new drugs prompt an immune response to cancer and other diseases.
"This probe will tell us things about the immune system that existing probes can't," said Radu, who also is a member of the Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging.
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| Contact: Kim Irwin kirwin@mednet.ucla.edu 310-206-2805 University of California - Los Angeles Source:Eurekalert |
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