Molecular targeting is the foundation of current therapies for a variety of diseases
including cancer. Imaging is central to the assessment of those therapies, and the
clinical use of imaging technologies for their assessment, specifically positron emission
tomography (PET), single photon computed tomography (SPECT) and magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI), continues to grow. The anatomical and functional information
provided by those imaging technologies enables us to diagnose, stage, and monitor
disease response to therapy. There also has been tremendous growth in (radio)
synthetic methods, the development of new imaging agents and theranostics over the
last few years, however, the number of agents evaluated in humans and receive FDA
approval still remains a few.
Often, validation and clinical translation aspects of an imaging agent or a theranostic
require a multi-disciplinary expertise. Despite the need for interdisciplinary
collaboration, molecular imaging researchers often work in silos of chemistry, physics,
and molecular biology pertaining to development and validation of imaging agents and
theranostics.
Our goal in providing this course is to dismantle the silos in molecular imaging and
theranostic agent development and clinical translation. We aim to provide a broad
understanding of all aspects of an imaging or theranostic agent development with a
specific emphasis on team science and translation.