Evening lecture by Prof. Dr. Danielle Vugts organized by the Haarlemse Chemische Kring.

Medical Isotopes in Medicine: From Image to Bedside

Summary
This lecture will discuss the various types of medical isotopes for imaging and therapy, followed by a discussion of how these can be incorporated into biologically active substances and the challenges involved. Finally, we will highlight how imaging and therapy with medical isotopes are currently being applied in clinical research.

Nuclear imaging has become an indispensable part of modern healthcare. It is frequently used in the diagnosis of diseases such as cancer.
In most cases, this is done with the tracer [18F]FDG, a sugar analog that accumulates in tissues with high energy requirements.

However, there is a growing need for more target-specific (protein-, receptor-, and enzyme-targeted) tracers for the diagnosis of cancer, neurodegenerative disorders, cardiological diseases, and autoimmune diseases. Furthermore, the use of radioactive nuclides is not limited to diagnostics; They can also be used therapeutically, and the demand for imaging in drug development is increasing rapidly.

Short CV
Danielle Vugts has been Professor of PET Radiochemistry, with a focus on pharmaceuticals, at the Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine at Amsterdam UMC since April 2024. Her research focuses on the development of novel radiochemical methods for the synthesis of PET tracers with 11C and 18F, and on the application of 89Zr-immuno-PET in drug development. Danielle has a background in organic chemistry and received her PhD in December 2006. For her postdoc, she switched to radiochemistry and has been working in this highly translational research field ever since. Since 2012, in addition to her research duties, she has been head of the production of radiolabeled biological molecules for clinical research. From 2018 to 2024, she was president of the Dutch Society of Clinical Radiochemists (NKRV) and is currently president of the Society of Radiopharmaceutical Sciences.

Guests are very welcome.

Please let us know in advance if you plan to attend.
Send an email to s.groenendijk@planet.nl.