A "Shake and Use" Theranostic System for Combined Radio-imaging and Photodynamic Therapy

In current cancer treatment regimes it is common for imaging of the tumour and therapeutic interventions (surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy) to be performed separately, sometimes several weeks apart. Obviously, during this time the tumour has the opportunity to grow and spread.

In this project we seek to combine both imaging and therapy into a single molecule, allowing intervention to inhibit tumour growth to be performed using the same molecule used for imaging.

The imaging modality in this case is positron emission tomography (PET), which is regarded as the technique of choice for identifying and staging tumours.

The therapeutic aspect of the molecules we will synthesise uses a compound known as a photosensitiser, which generates highly toxic reactive oxygen species when irradiated with high intensity visible light.

The technique, known as photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been shown to significantly inhibit tumour growth and also raises an immune response against the tumour tissue, thus, although PDT is unlikely to cure the tumour, it may prevent it growing in the period between imaging and conventional therapy, and also may recruit the immune system to combat spread of the cancer.