Novel hydrophilic Silicon-Fluoride-Acceptors (SiFAs) for in vivo Positron Emission Tomography (PET)

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This proposal aims to solve the main problem causing Positron Emission Tomography (PET) to be expensive and rarely used, although the methodology is important for patient outcome in a large variety of diseases, from cancer to neurology and cardiology. PET is dependend on contrast agents called radiotracers. The synthesis of these radiotracers is expensive and complex, requiring specialists working in expensively equipped laboratories.**During the last years, a possible pathway to obtain radiotracers in a much simpler and therefore cheaper fashion was found. However, the first synthons (although easy to label) were not successful in the synthesis of radiotracers because due to their chemical nature, they changed the lipophilicity of the radiotracers, and thus the in vivo behavior. This proposal contains a systematic study of how this lipophilicity can be altered, leading to radiotracers reaching their targets. Once the best structure has been identified, the long-term goal would be to automate the production process with GMP compliance to ultimately come up with a commercially available product, allowing every hospital or clinic with nuclear medicine technicians to produce cheap and efficient radiotracers.**If successful, this grant will lead to a better access of patients to PET scans, since they will be less expensive for the public Health Care system, and less highly qualified personnel is needed to make them feasible.