research
Novel Strategies to Optimize Targeted Molecular Imaging and Therapy
- Publication date
- 29 May 2013
- Publisher
- Improving patients’ clinical outcomes requires many levels of examination, owing to the
enormous complexities of human disease and healthcare delivery. Our understanding of
disease also requires many different levels of observation. The human experience preconditions
us to see the whole person and to relate to them as individuals, each with their
own unique set of circumstances. Modern medicine seeks to apply many forms of intervention,
including surgical resection, radiation and chemotherapy, and more recently,
targeted drug therapy. In this forum, we are concerned with disease and pathophysiology,
and how best to reach the site or sites of disease with targeted therapies. Monoclonal
antibodies and their fragments have long held promise in targeting epitopes unique
to diseased cells, e.g. cancer. Peptides and small molecule ligands that are capable of
binding unique expressions of disease are increasingly the focus of drug discovery and
development. This thesis focuses on development of radioligands for molecular imaging
and therapy and novel strategies to improve their application to achieve greater success.
These efforts are pursued in order to improve patient outcomes through more accurate
and timely diagnosis, staging, and monitoring of treatment interventions using molecular
imaging, and to more effectively treat disease using highly targeted therapies.