The goal of this proposal is to secure funding to add a new small animal Positron Emission Tomography (PET) in vivo imaging system to the Center for Molecular and Genomic Imaging (CMGI). CMGI is a core facility at UC Davis that provides the infrastructure and expertise to conduct in vivo imaging studies in animal models. We propose to purchase an Inveon Dedicated PET (Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc., Knoxville, TN) The Inveon PET system is a state of the art preclinical device that offers a large field of view for rodent applications (10.0cm transverse x 12.7cm axial). The PET device is based on LSO crystal technology in a 20x20 crystal block design. The system has a high sensitivity for 511keV photon detection. The reconstructed resolution for filtered back projection is 1.4mm at the center of the field of view. This device provides single bed position whole body mouse imaging and whole body rat images when using the 30cm continuous bed motion scan. The Inveon PET will be sited at the CMGI facility and used to support NIH-funded research in diverse areas such as cancer, vascular disease, liver disease, cellular therapies and wound healing, and will also be used to evaluate the pharmacokinetics of a range of new diagnostic and therapeutic agents under development by UC Davis faculty.
