Targeted Alpha Therapy Group

The targeted alpha therapy group perform research in close collaboration with several international research groups and institutes within all different research areas related to TAT. Most important the targeted alpha therapy group has continuous access to astatine-211 through a long-lasting scientific collaboration with the PET and Cyclotron Unit at Copenhagen University Hospital.

Copenhagen University Hospital

The PET & Cyclotron Unit at Copenhagen University Hospital is organized under the Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine and supplies the TAT-group with ²¹¹At under the direction of Chief Physicist, Holger Jensen.

The Cyclotron Unit is focused on producing PET isotopes such as ¹⁸F, ¹³N, ¹¹C, and ¹⁵O for the use at the 6 PET and PET/CT scanners in the department. But it also supplies FDG on a daily basis to different customers in the Copenhagen area. Besides this they have a large production of Rubidum/Krypton-generators and finally they produce several unique isotopes like ²¹¹At and ^111mCd. The latter productions can only be done with the Scanditronix MC32 cyclotron due to the high energy and the possibility of producing alpha-particle-beams. (Fig 1.)

The collaboration since 2000 with the Cyclotron Unit at Rigshospitalet consists of a continuous supply of irradiated ²⁰⁹Bi targets. The targets are irradiated by accelerated alpha particles in the cyclotron, and produces ²¹¹At via the nuclear reaction ²⁰⁹Bi(a,2n)²¹¹At. The targets are then transported to Gothenburg where the ²¹¹At is extracted by dry distillation and later used in our preclinical and clinical studies.

Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging

The Crump Institute at the UCLA is a multidisciplinary collaborative of scientists, students, and technologists in the fields of physics, biology, chemistry, and computational sciences.

The Biomolecular Targeting Research Laboratory at the UCLA focus on understanding and using molecular recognition (protein-protein, nucleic acid-nucleic acid, and protein-nucleic acid) to distinguish tumor cells from normal cells and to develop practical applications in oncology - diagnostic or therapeutic.

The collaboration with the Crump Institute and the Biomolecular Targeting Research Laboratory at the UCLA consists principally of a joint effort to evaluate different antibodies relevant for use in radioimmunotherapeutic approaches to prostate cancer.

Institute for Transuranium Elements

The Institute for Transuranium Elements (ITU) is a European Commission´s Joint Research Centre (JRC). (Fig 2.)

The Institute of Transuranium Elements prime subjectives are to serve as a reference centre for basic actinide research, to contribute to an effective safety and safeguards system for the nuclear fuel cycle, and to study technological and medical applications of radionuclides/actinides.

The facilities of the Alpha-immunotherapy action at ITU include laboratories for radionuclide production, radiobiological testing and organic synthesis.

Since February 2009 there exists a signed collaboration agreement between The European Atomic Energy Community (under which JRC and ITU are organized) and the University of Gothenburg (under which the Departments of Oncology and Radiation Physics are organized). The co-ordinators for this collaboration are Dr. Frank Bruchertseifer for the JRC and Dr. Sture Lindegren for the University of Gothenburg. The collaboration to date consists of ITU supplying ²¹³Bi generators to be used for evaluating the alpha-particle emitter ²¹³Bi in different pre-clinical studies.

Tokyo University

The targeted alpha therapy group is collaborating with scientists under the lead of Dr Akira Sugiyama at the isotope science center at Tokyo University, around, among other things, utilizing astatine-211 in a novel PRIT system developed in Japan.

Vrije Universiteit Brussel

The Vrije Universiteit Brussel is a Flemish university in Belgium where the TAT group collaborates with the Nick DeVoogdt and Tony Lahoutte research group at the In vivo Cellular and Molecular Imaging Lab (Fig 3.)

The collaboration is on the therapy of disseminated cancer using astatine labelled nanobodies. It includes developing chemical methods for astatination and the subsequent preclinical evaluation on tumor bearing mice and ultimately clinical evaluation. Nanobodies with different tumor specificity will be included in the study.

Nanobodies are genetically modified tumor specific antibody structures with origin from camel. It is the smallest antigen fragment available, 15 KD, about ten times smaller than an IgG antibody. The biodistribution of the antigen binding structure is determined by size and compared to normal sized antibodies targeting and clearance of the nanobody is much faster. In this way nanobodies gives new opportunities in targeted imaging and therapy of cancer.