ABSTRACT

Michael Scha¨fers, Sven Hermann, Sonja Scha¨fers, Thomas Viel, Marilyn Law, and Andreas H. Jacobs

European Institute for Molecular Imaging, University of Mu¨nster, Mu¨nster, Germany

2.1 The role of imaging in biomedical research and applications . . . . 11 2.2 Functional and molecular imaging by emission tomography

enables high sensitivity and spatial resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 2.3 Biomedical applications of emission tomography depend on

tracers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 2.4 Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

2.4.1 Preclinical applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 2.4.2 Clinical applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.4.3 Examples of biomedical applications of emission

tomography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 2.4.3.1 Bioluminescence imaging of tumor growth . . . 18 2.4.3.2 Dynamic PET in pharmakodynamic studies . 19 2.4.3.3 From mice to men-Non-invasive

translational imaging of inflammatory activity in graft-versus-host disease . . . . . . . . . . 20

2.4.3.4 PET to quantify catecholamine recycling and receptor density in patients with arrhythmias 22

2.4.3.5 Multiparametric imaging of brain tumors . . . 23 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Over the past decades imaging has gained an increasingly important role in biomedical research and clinical decision making [30, 31]. This is mostly due to the specific strength and beauty of imaging, which is (in the majority of imaging techniques) the non-destructive multi-parametric characterization

of a single cell, a tissue or complex organisms ranging from model organisms, such as drosophila, to patients. In this context imaging methods cover a broad spectrum from high resolution microscopic techniques over dedicated small animal scanners to whole-body human systems in clinical diagnostics.