Department of Radionuclide Theragnostics

Our work focuses on the development and application of compounds for therapy of tumors. Matched pairs of radionuclides consisting on the one hand of either (i) positron- or gamma-emitters or on the other hand of (ii) beta-emitters can be used for both imaging and therapy of tumors with the same underlying targeting molecule (theranostics). Based on the application of the diagnostic radionuclide an individualized patient-specific internal radiation dose can be predicted precisely and then applied by directed internal irradiation using the corresponding therapeutic radionuclide either alone or in combination with external beam irradiation or other therapeutic approaches including chemo- or immunotherapy.

Obviously, a series of (radio-)chemical, immunological and (radio-)pharmacological research is necessary for the development and finally for the translation into the clinic of versatile combinations of appropriate targeting strategies and compounds structurally based on antibodies, fragments thereof, peptides, small molecules or nanoparticles labeled with the respective adequate radionuclide(s).

In accordance with the wide-ranging task, special knowledge from various disciplines of chemistry is introduced. These are mainly organic chemistry, coordination chemistry, radiochemistry, biochemistry and pharmaceutical chemistry. The work is carried out within the institute in close cooperation with the Department of Radiopharmaceutical and Chemical Biology, as well as in cooperation with the TU Dresden.

Research Topics

• Therapeutic Alpha-Emitters
• Preclinical Characterization of Radioconjugates
• Cyclotron-produced Radiometals
• Bispidine-based Radiotheranostics
• Multi-targeted Radiotheranostics
• Biological evaluation and modulation of targeted, radiometal-based bioconjugates

• Development of radiometallic therapeutics based on, for example, proteins, peptides, oligonucleotides and nanoscalic systems
• Development and use of "robust", radiolytic and metabolically stable complexing agents for both therapeutic radionuclides such as ⁶⁷Cu, ⁹⁰Y, ^186/188Re and  ^197(m)Hg and for metallic PET nuclides (⁶⁴Cu, ⁶⁸Ga, ⁸⁹Zr)
• Methodical work for the preparation of therapeutic and non-conventional PET radionuclides (⁶⁴Cu, ⁶⁷Cu, ⁸⁹Zr)
• Application-related work on the organic synthesis chemistry of radiopharmaceutically relevant compounds
• Radiopharmaceutical treatment of cancer - strategy of tumor-pretargeting
• Radiopharmaceutical treatment of cancer - development of novel peptide- and antibody-based theranostics