The PET and muPET Facility Core provides the Burn Trauma Center with the capability to apply nuclear imaging techniques to study phenomena at the tissue, cellular, and genetic levels. The facility core supports research that allows us to study a wide range of biological processes in both humans and living laboratory animals. In particular, this technology using either state-of-the-art conventional PET cameras or a muPET camera provides us with the ability to study an animal more than once, allows each animal to serve as its own control, and allows interventional strategies to be followed over time. Furthermore, identical studies can also be conducted non-invasively directly in normal human volunteers and patients. The muPET camera, which enables imaging at resolutions of 1 mm or less in both humans and animals, is mobile and will make imaging skeletal muscle possible in our intensive care patients while they are still acutely ill. Further development of molecular imaging methodologies with high resolution will enable investigators to image gene expression in relevant tissues and skeletal muscle apoptosis to better understand the immuno-inflammatory host response initially in C57BL/6 mice and later in humans. The PET and muPET Facility Core allows complex studies to be performed within the Human Subjects Core and Animal Research Cores at the MGH, Shriners Hospital, and MIT. The facility core provides the Burn Trauma Center investigators with the capability to apply PET technology to test scientific hypotheses without the need to become PET experts themselves. The PET and muPET Facility Core offers several services to the Burn Trauma Center. (1) Design and development of new physiological imaging agents labeled with 18F, 11C, 13N, or 15O. (2) Routine Production and dispensing of existing and new imaging agents for PET study protocols. (3) Design of imaging and data analysis protocols for new agents. (4) Routine execution of existing imaging protocols and data analyses. (5) Development of new instrumentation for specific applications within the Center (e.g. mu PET camera). (6) Development of new technology for real-time molecular imaging of apoptosis and gene expression. Support is requested in this facility for methodology and development that will be very helpful in all four projects.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 110 publications
