Neurotracers and beyond: Overview of the positron emitting radiopharmaceuticals

Abstract

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is a molecular imaging modality which enables visualization of biochemical processes, signals and transformations in vivo. PET has found a unique place in the arsenal of molecular imaging modalities due to the unprecedented sensitivity, tissue penetration depth, non-invasiveness and is especially powerful in neuroscience for imaging receptors and misfolded protein inclusions in the living brain. In the past several decades, PET studies have shed light on the in vivo function of many neurotransmission systems including monoaminergic, glutamatergic, GABAergic, acetylcholinergic and others. Recently, PET imaging of beta-amyloid and tau protein aggregates as well as translocator protein (TSPO) are contributing to our understanding of the mechanisms of neurodegeneration. This presentation will overview the current PET tracers available at the Neuro and beyond and explore the pitfalls in development of novel PET tracers for unexplored biologically relevant targets.

Biography

Alexey Kostikov received his M.Sc. degree in Chemistry from the Saint-Petersburg State University (Russia) in 2001 and completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Georgia (US) in 2007. After his first postdoctoral appointment at Syracuse University (US), he joined Montreal Neurological Institute in 2009 as a Research Associate and later became an Assistant Professor of radiochemistry at the PET unit of the Neuro. Dr. Kostikov’s current research projects are focused on development of novel positron emission tomography (PET) radiotracers for in vivo imaging of unexplored neurological biomarkers and improving the efficiency of radiolabeling procedures. He is also heavily involved in day-to-day operations of the PET/cyclotron core facility that is serving neuroscience researchers at McGill University and other clinical and research centers across the province of Quebec with medical radioisotopes.