Student: Jennifer Young
1st supervisor: Phil Blower, King’s College London
2nd supervisor: Greg Mullen, Theragnostics
A novel chelator design, based on tripodal tris(hydroxypyridinone) ligands has been found (YM103) and this project will build on and optimise this design to achieve rapid labelling and even achieve labelling in vivo – a novel form of “pretargeting.” In this project the design of these chelators will be optimised and their utility in novel molecular imaging approaches will be evaluated, including new protein/peptide conjugates, pretargeting approaches (ie chelation of the radiometal in vivo) and radionuclide therapy of cancer with short half life radionuclides other than Ga-68. Pretargeting will allow short halflife radionuclides such as Ga-68 and Bi-213 to be used with targeting molecules that localise and clear slowly (eg monoclonal antibodies) thus reducing radiation dose to patients and improving imaging and therapy.