Oncologic Imaging & Radioligand Therapy

The Division of Oncologic Imaging & Radioligand Therapy explores the basic chemical and biochemical mechanisms underlying cancer and how these can be exploited in functional molecular imaging and therapy of cancer to enhance the benefits and quality of patient care. The different groups of the Division focus particularly on research activities which support translational programs according to the precision medicine concept leading to clinical trials.

The current principal investigators in the Division of Oncologic Imaging & Radioligand Therapy perform basic discovery and clinical-based research aimed at the design, synthesis and validation of innovative radiopharmaceuticals to optimize current diagnosis and treatment of cancer. The research programs fall into the categories of radionuclide production, radiopharmaceutical chemistry, radiopharmacy, radiopharmacology, pharmacokinetics, radiation dosimetry, SPECT and PET imaging, and targeted radiotherapy. They also involve a variety of other academic disciplines such as cellular and molecular biology of cancer, health care economics and the initiation and coordination of clinical trials.

Research initiatives are supported by sophisticated, basic and clinical research tools that include divers clinical multimodality SPECT and PET imaging instrumentation, a preclinical PET/CT imaging platform, a microPET animal camera, a library of PET and SPECT radiopharmaceuticals for clinical cancer research, fully equipped basic discovery research and clinical production labs with several automated synthesis units for the preparation of innovative radiopharmaceuticals, and two cyclotrons for radionuclide production, including the production of non-standard radioisotopes for special biomedical research applications.