Small Animal PET System

描述（由申请人提供）：本提案是一个新的小动物PET，以支持华盛顿大学和弗雷德哈钦森癌症研究中心的基础和转化研究。对于生物医学成像来说，这是一个激动人心的时刻，新的成像工具正在开发中，以回答生物医学研究所有领域的前沿重要问题。这些研究大多是在疾病或特殊基因表达的小动物模型中进行的。这些独特和高度专业化的动物模型的价值创造了对生物特异性非侵入性成像的需求，这种成像可以在动物或疾病表达的整个生命周期内纵向进行。华盛顿大学分子成像中心是协作和创新研究的重点，使用先进的方法对生物化学过程进行非侵入性成像。我们的基础和转化研究项目将大大受益于高空间和时间分辨率，这是最先进的小动物PET所能提供的。西澳大学PET项目已经活跃了近20年，是癌症和心血管成像研究的领导者。该项目的一大成功之处在于，它与华盛顿大学、FHCRC、儿童医院和地区医疗中心等众多部门建立了合作关系。这个项目的成功表明，我们迫切需要在我们的机构中放置一个小动物PET，以支持我们NIH资助的研究人员的研究和成像要求，并支持扩展其他研究项目。本应用程序描述了在我们机构的许多不同研究项目中使用小动物PET，重点是癌症研究应用。该资源最初将支持的项目包括缺氧、肿瘤细胞死亡、肿瘤转移和肿瘤葡萄糖代谢的机制研究；肿瘤对治疗的反应及治疗优化；前列腺癌研究；[F-18]FDG扫描方案的优化。拟议的仪器将提供高分辨率的小动物PET成像，结合我们的放射性同位素专用回旋加速器，以及具有成像，放射化学，物理，图像分析，动力学建模，分子生物学和研究方案开发专业知识的研究人员和工作人员。我们将获得的仪器将能够满足高分辨率成像要求，具有计数率和衰减校正能力，以提供小动物疾病模型所需的生物特异性放射性药物的组织定量。使用PET放射性核素成像已成为UW/FHCRC研究人员非常有用的翻译工具，并在过去几年中得到了相当大的扩展。我们现在希望完成我们的研究能力与PET研究人员也结合实验室，小动物和人类协议。获得和使用专门的最先进的小动物PET将为我们高度积极和杰出的研究人员的转化研究目标做出重大贡献。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal is for a new small animal PET to support basic and translational research at the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. This is an exciting time for imaging in biomedicine, with new imaging tools being developed to answer important questions at the cutting edge in all fields of biomedical research. Much of this research is conducted in small animal models of disease or special genetic expression. The value of these unique and highly specialized animal models has created a demand for biologically specific non-invasive imaging that can be performed longitudinally over the lifetime of the animal or expression of the disease. The UW Molecular Imaging Center is a focus for collaborative and innovative research using advanced methods for non-invasive imaging of biochemical processes in vivo. Our basic and translational research programs will benefit greatly from the high spatial and temporal resolution that a state of the art small animal PET can provide. The UW PET program has been active for nearly 20 years and is a leader in cancer and cardiovascular imaging research. One of the great successes of this program is that it has established collaborations with numerous departments spanning the UW, FHCRC and Children's Hospital and Region Medical Center. The success of this program has dictated a critical need to place a small animal PET in our institutions to support the research and imaging requirements of our NIH funded investigators and to support expanding other research programs. This application describes the use of small animal PET in many different research programs at our institutions, with a focus on cancer research applications. Projects that will initially be supported by this resource include mechanistic studies of hypoxia, tumor cell death, tumor metastasis, and tumor glucose metabolism; tumor response to therapy and therapy optimization; prostate cancer research; and optimization of [F-18]FDG scanning protocols. The proposed instrument will provide high resolution small animal PET imaging in conjunction with our radioisotope dedicated cyclotron, and group of researchers and staff with expertise in imaging, radiochemistry, physics, image analysis, kinetic modeling, molecular biology and study protocol development. The instrument we will acquire will be able to meet the high resolution imaging demands with count rate and attenuation correction capabilities to provide tissue quantitation of biologically specific radiopharmaceuticals required in small animal disease models. Imaging using PET radionuclides has become a remarkably useful translational tool for UW/FHCRC researchers, and has expanded considerably in the last several years. We now wish to complete our research capability with PET for researchers that also combine laboratory, small animal and human protocols. Acquisition and use of a dedicated state of the art small animal PET will make a significant contribution to the translational research goals of our highly motivated and distinguished group of investigators.