Total-body PET Scanner

The four-year funding supports PET-enabled Dual-Energy CT, which uses PET data to generate high-energy CT images alongside the standard ones, revealing tissue composition without extra radiation or new CT hardware which is normally required for dual-energy CT imaging.

A paper in the European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging by Yansong Zhu et al. last year showcased this breakthrough using the innovative EXPLORER total- body PET scanner, proving its real-world potential

Congratulations to Dr. Negar Omidvari, Assistant Project Scientist in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, who has been awarded an R01 grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to investigate the immune and systemic manifestations of post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC, or “Long COVID”).

In a study published in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine, 24 lymphoma patients underwent [18F]FDG scans at standard 3 MBq/kg doses, with simulations testing reductions down to 0.125 MBq/kg. Doses as low as 0.25 MBq/kg at 1-hour post-injection and 1.0 MBq/kg at 2 hours maintained reliable tumor measurements and Deauville scores for treatment evaluation.

Dr. Siqi Li, Assistant Project Scientist, Department of Radiology, has been awarded a two-year NIH/NIBIB R03 research grant as a Principal Investigator to explore the feasibility of Total-body PET Parametric Imaging using the Relative Patlak Plot. His work aims to refine quantitative imaging techniques that enhance the efficiency and accuracy of parametric PET imaging, paving the way for improved disease detection and monitoring.

Assistant Project Scientist Negar Omidvari and her colleagues have demonstrated the high quantitative precision and accuracy of the NeuroEXPLORER, a next-generation dedicated brain PET system. The paper, now available in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine, presents extensive evaluations using phantom and human data across a broad range of imaging conditions relevant to dynamic neuroimaging.

The research, published in Rheumatology included 71 adults with psoriatic arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, or osteoarthritis, and revealed that a significant proportion of inflamed joints (15%), entheses (20%), and nails (13%) were undetected by routine assessments but captured by a single, low-dose Total-Body PET scan. This work could pave the way for earlier diagnosis and better treatment of autoimmune arthritic conditions.

In an international collaboration with Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, a data correction framework was developed for the modular J-PET scanner—a cost-effective PET imaging system that uses long plastic scintillators instead of traditional, expensive inorganic crystals. Manish Das, a PhD scholar from the J-PET team and UC Davis-based Assistant Project Scientist Reimund Bayerlein successfully demonstrated promising image quality using phantom data for the first time.

The American Heart Association (AHA) has awarded Dr. Kevin Chung a highly competitive two-year Postdoctoral Fellowship to support his research on multiparametric PET imaging of the heart-brain axis. His project aims to develop a methodological framework using total-body dynamic 18F-FDG PET to assess vascular and metabolic function in both the heart and brain, a crucial step in understanding multisystemic effects of myocardial ischemia.