Dissertation: Pierre Cheung • PET imaging of beta-cell mass
- Date: 2 May 2023, 10:00–12:30
- Location: Rudbeck Laboratory, Rudbecksalen, Dag Hammarskjölds Väg 20, Uppsala
- Type: Thesis defence
- Lecturer: PhD Student: Pierre Cheung, Department of Medicinal Chemistry
- Thesis author: undefined
- DiVA
- Organiser: Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Uppsala University
- Contact person: Olof Eriksson, Department of Medicinal Chemistry
Pierre Cheung, PhD Student at Uppsala University's Department of Medicinal Chemistry, defends his thesis PET imaging of beta-cell mass.
Pierre Cheung received his master degree in Biomedical Sciences in 2019 from Université catholique de Louvain. The following autumn, he joined Olof Eriksson's research group in Translational imaging.
Download Thesis PET imaging of beta-cell mass
Popular Science Summary
Diabetes is a disease characterized by long-term high blood glucose levels which can cause damages to small blood vessels leading to blindness or nerve damages. To control our blood glucose level, our bodies secrete a crucial signaling compound called insulin.
The only place where insulin can be produced is within the beta cells of the pancreas, which are gradually lost over the progression of the disease. Importantly, the insulin producing cells could have been under stress or destroyed much earlier than the first symptoms of diabetes, as insulin levels are sometimes still maintained by the remaining beta cells.
The major issue we are currently facing is the lack of available diagnostic methods to verify the loss of beta cells, without using aggressive methods such as surgery. Positron-emission tomography is a medical imaging method based on the detection of a radioactive signal emitted from a probe that we inject into the blood circulation. This technique has been recently introduced as a novel method to study beta cells without causing any harm to the patient.
To achieve the proper imaging of beta cells, two major conditions need to be met first:
1) The finding of a beta-cell marker that is unique to them
2) The development of an adequate probe that is able to target the beta cells with high precision and without missing its mark.
GPR44 and DGCR2 are two of the newly discovered markers of beta cells through protein screening. To target them, we have produced the radioactively labeled compounds MK-7246 and ZDGCR2:AM106 respectively.
My work is to evaluate MK-7246 and ZDGCR2:AM106 using laboratory methods such as cell culture or animal testing to ensure their efficacy and safety before attempting to use them in humans.