Enabling enhanced preclinical nuclear imaging at the University of Hull

这项拨款申请是为了升级赫尔大学用于小动物（小鼠和大鼠）核成像的临床前扫描设备。这些设施用于研究疾病和人类健康。将解决的主要领域是疾病（特别是癌症）的诊断和分期以及治疗的个性化选择（例如，放射治疗还是化疗是最好的治疗方法，甚至哪种药物最有可能成功治疗患者）。临床前扫描允许以最有效和最基本的方式使用动物模型，在放射性药物进入人体临床试验之前对其进行验证。数据的质量还意味着，了解这种药物并证明它是否适合用于人体临床试验所需的动物数量减少了。放射性药物使用少量的放射性物质，通常在小型粒子加速器上产生，使我们能够定位疾病，跟踪生物过程并选择患者的治疗方法。它们为无创跟踪人体分子水平过程提供了最灵敏和唯一有效的方法。我们在赫尔大学发明了新的放射性药物候选药物，并与英国和国际制药公司合作，提供数据，使他们的药物能够通过临床测试并最终批准用于常规人类使用（即在NHS中）。我们支持临床医生开发和测试新的药物治疗方法，以确定有效剂量和治疗方案，以供患者使用。从临床前成像研究中获得的高质量信息意味着这些化合物可以快速有效地进行测试和验证。这形成了赫尔与临床前研究连接到NHS患者扫描的翻译途径的一部分。我们可以进行研究病人扫描，并将使用临床前扫描仪收集数据，通过使用我们在医院现场的新的人类生产设施（城堡山医院分子成像研究中心，赫尔大学教学医院NHS信托）将新的放射性药物带到诊所。

The grant application is to upgrade the preclinical scanning facilities for nuclear imaging of small animals (mice and rats) at the University of Hull. These facilities are used for research into disease and human health. The main areas that will be tackled are the diagnosis and staging of disease (particularly cancer) along with the personalised selection of treatment (e.g. whether radiotherapy or chemotherapy is the best treatment, and even which drug will be the most likely to successfully treat the patient). Preclinical scanning allows the use of the animal models in the most effective and essential way to validate radiopharmaceutical drugs before they can be taken into clinical trials in humans. The quality of the data also means that fewer animals are required to understand the drug and demonstrate whether it is suitable for clinical trials in humans.Radiopharmaceuticals use a miniscule amount of a radioactive substance, generally produced on a small particle accelerator, to allow us to locate disease, track biological processes and select treatment in patients. They provide the most sensitive method and only effective way for tracking molecular level processes non-invasively in the human body.We have invented new radiopharmaceutical drug candidates at the University of Hull and are also working with both UK based and international pharmaceutical companies to provide data to allow their drugs to progress through to clinical testing and ultimately approved for routine human use (i.e. in the NHS). We support clinicians in developing and testing new drug treatments to determine effective doses and treatment regimes for them to use in patients. The high quality information obtained from the preclinical imaging studies means that these compounds can rapidly and efficiently be tested and validated.This forms part of a translational pathway in Hull with preclinical research linking through to NHS patient scanning. We can carry out research patient scans and will use the preclinical scanners to gather the data to take new radiopharmaceuticals through to the clinic using our new human production facility on the hospital site (the Molecular Imaging Research Centre at Castle Hill Hospital, Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust)..