Chairs
Professor Nicholas Long, Imperial College London, UK
Professor Nicholas Long, Imperial College London, UK
Nicholas Long is the Sir Edward Frankland BP Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at Imperial College London. He possesses wide-ranging experience and expertise in synthetic inorganic and organometallic chemistry and his novel compounds have found applications within catalysis, materials science and biomedical imaging. He has published 165 scientific papers, won the 2006 RSC Prize for Organometallic Chemistry, was a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellow in 2010 and became Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2011. In 2014, Long became Deputy-Director of the new King’s/Imperial EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Medical Imaging (www.imagingcdt.com) and in 2015, co-edited the textbook ‘The Chemistry of Molecular Imaging’ (Wiley). Recent biomedical imaging-related research highlights include (i) design of diabetes sensor – detecting zinc via MRI and optical imaging signalling, (ii) micro-reactors for metal-mediated radiolabelling in PET and (iii) ‘smart’ self-assembling iron oxide nanoparticles for cancer imaging.
09:00-09:30
Mulitmodual imaging: new probes for positron emission tomography combined with magnetic resonance or optical imaging
Professor Steve Archibald, University of Hull
Abstract
The design of multimodal imaging constructs requires consideration of the optimal method to combine components. Targeting to specific tissues or physiological processes introduces a further aspect to the system.
In general two approaches have been taken:
(1) Molecular constructs where components are combined in a stepwise manner allows more exquisite control of the imaging probe formed but can be laborious. This approach is most effective when components are multifunctional (i.e. a combined dye and targeting component). The development of molecular probes that combine positron emission tomography/optical imaging potential will be discussed. The use of molecular properties such as lipophilicity and charge to influence tissue/ cellular uptake and localisation will be exemplified in the determination of mitochondrial function and cell surface receptor targeting in vitro and in vivo.
(2) Nanoparticles and polymers offer opportunity for conjugation of multiple types of imaging or targeting groups on the surface and the core can also have imaging or contrast agent properties. Examples will be presented of the construction of nanoparticles for multimodal imaging in tissue engineering applications.
The design of probes from synthesis and characterisation through to in vivo imaging will be used to validate these approaches and demonstrate the potential for translational studies.
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Professor Steve Archibald, University of Hull
Professor Steve Archibald, University of Hull
Steve Archibald is the Director of the Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Research Centre and a Professor in Molecular Imaging Chemistry at the University of Hull. He has interests in PET probe development, chelator synthesis and chemokine receptor binding molecules. Recent research has explored multimodal imaging using nanoparticles to combine radiopharmaceuticals with MRI and/or optical contrast agents.
He trained in the design and synthesis of macrocyclic chelators (PhD Edinburgh) and started his research into medical imaging and positron emission tomography on joining the University of Hull in 2000. Since 2011 he has led a research project to develop new lab-on-a-chip devices for integrated synthesis and quality control of radiopharmaceuticals (seven patent applications filed over 2015-2016). He has developed multimodal imaging probes for tissue engineering constructs as a part of an EU project. Steve is a company director of Daisy Medical Research Ltd, a not for profit that provides clinical PET scanning.
09:45-10:15
Multi-modal nanparticles
Professor Willem Mulder, Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Abstract
Nanodrugs are self-assembled assembled structures for which drug loading stability is strongly influenced by the in vivo environment. Interactions between nanodrugs and blood components have been reported to cause drug leakage. Therefore, thoroughly understanding in vivo drug-carrier association stability and dissociation kinetics should improve delivery efficiency and, as a result, therapeutic efficacy. We have recently shown that optical imaging techniques, including Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) imaging, can monitor the drug-carrier association and help identify key parameters that determine drug-carrier compatibility. These findings can serve as drug delivery efficiency guidelines that can be applied to improve nanodrug design.
Despite nanomedicine’s promise and the field’s research activity, its potential is not being fully met and implementation in clinical care is falling behind. In part this is due to the technology’s immaturity, but – more importantly – ways to stratify patients that may benefit from nanodrug-based therapy are nonexistent. The ability to non-invasively evaluate targeting would greatly improve patient care by allowing swift adjustments in dosage and/or treatment regimen. Strategies in which nanodrugs are labeled for imaging-facilitated delivery are extensively studied. Unfortunately, such theranostic approaches have little clinical relevance.
As has been shown for antibody therapy, an easy-to-prepare companion diagnostic for quantitative imaging of nanodrugs can overcome these issues. Practically, the companion diagnostic can be applied to screen for patient amenability, but can also be used as an agent that is co-injected with the actual nanodrug to aid in treatment continuation decision.
In this presentation, imaging-facilitated optimization of nanodrugs and the “companion diagnostic’ concept, the latest advances in these fields, as well as translational considerations will be discussed.
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Professor Willem Mulder, Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Professor Willem Mulder, Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Dr Willem Mulder is a Professor at the Department of Radiology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (New York, USA) and a Professor of Cardiovascular Nanomedicine at the Academic Medical Center, Department of Medical Biochemsitry (Amsterdam, The Netherlands). His laboratory focuses on the development of nanoparticle libraries with differential specificity for immunological processes relevant to disease progression. Nanomaterials from these libraries can be loaded with drugs, enabling targeted therapy of a variety of pathophysiological processes, relevant to cardiovascular disease and cancer. For molecular imaging purposes, nanomaterials from immune cell screens are selected and labeled for highly sensitive and quantitative PET/MR imaging. Mulder has received several research grants from the National Institute of Health (NIH) to develop nanotechnology for vascular diseases and oncology. He has authored over 100 scientific articles, which are published in authoritative academic journals, including Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, Nano Letters, Nature Communications, Nature Nanotechnology and ACS Nano.
11:00-11:30
Upconverting nanoarticles
Professor Chunhua Yan, Peking University
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Professor Chunhua Yan, Peking University
Professor Chunhua Yan, Peking University
Chun-Hua Yan was born in Shanghai, China. He received his BS, MS and PhD degrees from Peking University (PKU), China. He became full Professor in 1991 and Cheung Kong Professor of Chemistry in 1999 at PKU. He is an elected Member of Chinese Academy of Sciences (2011) and a Fellow of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS, 2012). He is now the Director of the State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Materials Chemistry and Applications; he also serves as an Associate Editor for Inorganic Chemistry (ACS) and the Managing Editor-in-Chief for J. Rare Earths (Elsevier). His main research fields are rare earth functional materials and rare earth separation chemistry and engineering.
11:45-12:15
Lanthanide probes
Professor Gary Wong, Hong Kong Baptist University
Abstract
One of the major limitations of the existing anticancer agents is their differentiation of cancer cells and normal cells. Recently, some studies in the literature have suggested that some overexpressed cancer cell cycle regulating proteins (e.g. Cyclin(s), Plk1 and EBNA1) can be the particular cancer targets. Several small molecules as their inhibitors have been reported; however, those reported inhibitors are not emissive and cannot directly evaluate their effectiveness, such as real time imaging, biodistribution and pharmacokinetic studies. Over the recent two decades, luminescent lanthanide materials have shown extensive applications in the detection of various bioactive molecules and for in vitro/in vivo imaging, addressing the problem of autofluorescence. For this reason, one of our driving forces for synthesizing new lanthanide materials for imaging these cell cycle regulated protein relates to their unique photophysical properties, such as long emission lifetimes (effective elimination of biological auto-fluorescence in time-resolved spectroscopy) and characteristic hypersensitive emissions, (providing real-time information about the effect on coordination environment by surrounding entities, especially with europium) which are attractive substitutes to the more commonly used organic fluorophores.
In this seminar, I would like to share our development recently on emissive lanthanide materials as dual bioprobes for in vitro/in vivo imaging and inhibition of overexpressed tumor regulator proteins, such as Cyclin(s), Plk1 and EBNA1. It is hoped that the success in research could also lead to the success in practice, thereby providing more powerful tools to get more complete pictures of the roles of Cyclin(s)/Plk1/EBNA1.
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Professor Gary Wong, Hong Kong Baptist University
Professor Gary Wong, Hong Kong Baptist University
Dr. Ka-Leung Wong (Gary) has his research field which mainly focuses on lanthanide chemistry for spectroscopy studies and molecular imaging. He completed a PhD degree in the University of Hong Kong in 2006, following two-year post-doctoral in the City University of Hong Kong and one-year Royal Society Post-doctoral fellowship with Professor David Parker in Durham. In September 2009, he returned to Hong Kong and joined the department of chemistry in Hong Kong Baptist University as a faculty member. He has published more than 80 papers and has been bestowed the ERES Junior award in 2015, an international triennial prize by the European Rare Earth Society and has selected international advisory board for Multidisciplinary Chemistry Journal in ChemPlusChem (Wiley Publisher).