Adoptive T cell therapies, where a patient?s cells are manipulated ex-vivo and infused back into the patient have been shown to be effective recently. Unfortunately there is currently no targeted companion-imaging test available that can predict therapeutic efficacy early in treatment or determine cause of treatment failure after a patient is given immunotherapy. Detecting location of activated T cells or lack of T cell activation can be early predictor of response to immunotherapy therefore we propose to validate use of a specialized PET tracer, [18F]F-AraG, to determine individual patient?s reaction to immunotherapy early to help determine treatment action. Patients can be spared unnecessary suffering while reducing healthcare costs by stopping ineffective treatments. Our immune activation PET tracer, [18F]F-AraG would also be extremely valuable tool for pharmaceutical companies during cancer immunotherapy development to accelerate time to market for their therapeutics. We propose to further determine mechanism of [18F]F-AraG accumulation in various types of immune cells, and demonstrate imaging of activated T cells in mice undergoing immunotherapies. Concurrently we will study the pharmacokinetics, dosimetry and safety of [18F]F-AraG in a healthy human clinical trial. Successful completion of above tasks should lead us to additional clinical trials to monitor immunotherapy in cancer patients.
