Small Animal PET Scanner

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Vanderbilt University School of Medicine is applying for partial support for the acquisition of a small animal PET scanner for studying rodents and primates. This scanner will significantly enhance and extend currently funded NIH research at Vanderbilt in the areas of cancer research and neuroscience research. At present, nine NIH funded investigators have projects requiring a small animal PET scanner for studies of tumor growth, gene expression, malignant transformation, metastatic spread, cerebral plasticity, forebrain development, antipsychotic drug, mechanisms of action, cerebral neurotransmitter interactions, and hallucinogenic drugs. Although Vanderbilt has a well equipped PET Center for clinical diagnosis and clinical research the GE Advance scanner is saturated by clinical and clinical research use, and a reconstructed resolution of a tissue of 5-6mm, which is inadequate for rodent studies and suboptimal for primate brain studies. PET radiopharmaceuticals needed for this research are available from the Vanderbilt PET Radiochemistry Laboratory. The small animal PET scanner will be operated by a user facility under the direction of Dr. Robert Kessler with the oversight of an Advisory Committee who will assure equal access to all NIH funded investigators. The facility will be staffed by physics and processing staff as well as Dr. Kessler who will aid new users in experimental design, data acquisition and analysis. The small animal PET scanner is a critical component in the long-term research plan at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. It will be sited physically within the PET Center administratively within the newly formed Center for Research Imaging under the Direction of Dr. John Gore.