New strategies to produce perfluorinated radiotracers for PET imaging

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging is a molecular imaging technique that can provide quantitative data on biological processes in the human body and is widely used by healthcare providers, pharmaceutical companies, and academic researchers. The PET radionuclide fluorine-18 is has many advantageous properties for the radiolabelling of small molecule PET radiotracers. Currently, the range and diversity of small molecules that can be radiolabelled are limited by the radiochemistry methods available. This fellowship will expand the toolkit of reactions available to includes 18F-perfluorinated motifs, and consequently, the range and
breadth of 18F-radiotracers through an oxidative fluorination strategy. Using this new method, we will develop syntheses of 18F-Gemcitabine and 18F-EF5, two highly sought after targets currently inaccessible from [18F]fluoride. This fellowship is highly interdisciplinary and will provide expert training in fluorine (radio)chemistry, automation, Good Manufacturing Practice and clinical translation.