Washington University in St. Louis (WU)
Our researches are focusing in developing PET probes for imaging neuron receptors, enzymes and transporters for neurodegenerative diseases and other CNS disorders. We have successfully developed PET probes that have the capability of quantifying the density of the Vesicular Acetylcholine Transporter in the brain PET and assessing of the level of phosphodiesterase 10A in the brain. Currently, we are developing probes that will have the capability to measure the accumulation of alpha-synuclein, a reliable hall marker for Parkinson disease in human. We expect to translate these probes into the clinic for the diagnosis and monitoring the therapeutic efficacy of treating Parkinson disease with different therapeutic strategy. In addition, we had successfully developed a sigma-2 receptor PET probe that is currently in translational clinical validation for imaging tumor cell proliferation of breast cancer.