© AIPES eeig., 2012- All rights reserved for all countries

Conference: "The future of Molecular Medicine: Imaging of human biology by Positron Emission Tomography?" - Prof. Bengt R. Langström - Brussels, 22 February 2012

Prof. Langström, from the Department of Biochemistry and Organic Chemistry at the Uppsala University, Sweden, the Imperial College, London, UK and the Syddansk University, Odense, Denmark was invited by the NewTech Workgroup and Prof. Dewi M. Lewis to speak about the future of Molecular Medicine.

Molecular Imaging (MI) is interpreted as a technology to obtain images from a semantic view. However there are more relevant factors to consider in the image interpretation such as the half-life of the radio-nuclide, the way of producing the labelled compounds (the tracers), the design of the experimental and clinical protocols. With positron emission tomography (PET) an important feature is that we have access to other unique radio-nuclides ¹⁵O, ¹³N and ¹¹C - opening up a road to apply endogenous molecules in numerous different applications.

For PET technology there has been considerable on-going development and a lot of exciting achievements made, however I would like to claim that so far we and the technology have underachieved and that there is much more to expect from these positron emission tracers (PET) and to make another semantic interpretation. 

In the lecture there was a discussion on how to produce these labelled compounds, what technology is being used and what technology is still to be developed to exploit their molecular properties and to design new application protocols. There will be discussion on the consequences of these unique properties with reference to the high specific radioactivity and to the fate of the labelled molecules? Maybe the focus should be on the use of single or multi tracers in order to understand the biology? Are there other applications to utilize where there is a need of using the tracer concept not only to visualize but to quantify and to be able to be used in repetitive experiments where controlled modifications of the various tracer types can be applied?

One may argue that there is a need to get back to more basic research not only to label compounds but to develop further chemistry methods and more appropriate technology to meet the huge potential of PET. Maybe the most unique characteristics of PET are found in the fact that we have access to ¹⁵O, ¹³N and the pearl of the crown ¹¹C. We have huge possibilities to develop, explore and validate many more tracers as tools in order to understand human biology There are many applications to diagnose, to stage, to treat, to follow up in drug development and the exploration of  basic in vivo biochemistry. It is worth remembering that the radio-nuclides of key elements of life give us tools for in vivo biology dynamics studies.

The access to other labelled compounds using radio-nuclides with longer half-life such as ¹⁸F, and radio-metals like ⁶⁸Ga, ⁶⁴Cu attached to macromolecules like peptides and proteins shows other application areas where molecular imaging can be used to explore human biology.

There was a discussion on some of these issues and an argument that it is time to regain a wider perspective of MI for not only discussing and validating the images themselves but to understand better their content and the biological information that can be generated, by using  MI technology in a wider perspective,

So more focus on quantification, on the molecular and experimental design however but without neglecting the resolution of MI as well as other MI modalities available – this is the lead for the future.

Conference: “European Perspectives in Personalised Medicine” – Brussels - EU Directorate for Reasearch & Innovation - 12-13 May 2011

The Health Directorate of the European Commission's DG Research and Innovation organised the conference European Perspectives in Personalised Medicine, in Brussels on 12 -13 May 2011. The conference took place at the Square Meeting Centre, in the presence of John Dalli , Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy, and with the support of Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science.

The conference aimed to take stock of recent achievements in health related research leading to personalised medicine and helped to identify and prioritise future actions needed at the European level. It brought together over 450 European and national level policy makers, industrial and academic researchers, patients, clinicians and other stakeholders.

On the initiative of Dr Philippe Jehenson, from the Health Directorate of the EU DG Research and Innovation AIPES was invited to partake in one of the discussion panels.

Thomas Beyer, Chair of the New Technologies Working Group, represented AIPES as a panelist in Session 2 on “Biomarkers in Personalized Medicine”. While most speakers at that conference described the "*omics" (incl. gene profiling) as the mainstay of personalized medicine, Thomas Beyer added a number of remarks on molecular imaging without which Personalized Medicine would not be possible. Thanks to Philippe Jehenson additional input on molecular imaging was provided to this conference through other speakers (e.g., Markus Schwaiger, Munich). It became clear that if AIPES intends to support nuclear medicine as an integral part of personalised diagnosis and treatment, then AIPES needs to be actively involved in these types of conferences more often.