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Pre-clinical exploration

ANSTO LifeSciences has capabilities and facilities for pre-clinical in vivo exploration, which aims to evaluate and map physiological parameters in specific conditions and assess their changes over time, during disease onset, progression, or recovery through therapy.

These in vivo data can be completed with in vitro information collected on post mortem tissues with in vitro techniques.

Capabilities

In vitro techniques

  • Distribution (Receptor Density) and Functionality (G-Protein Coupling) Radioreceptor Autoradiography
  • Functional (Histology staining) and Structural information (Immunohistochemistry staining)

In vivo imaging

  • Longitudinal studies with PET/CT and SPECT/CT
  • Arterial blood collection throughout the scan duration
  • Complex injection protocols
  • Full quantification in multiple organs to estimate physiological parameters (receptor density, occupancy, apparent affinity)

In vivo data analysis

  • Automatic whole-body CT co-registration intra and inter-individual for population analysis
  • Atlas-based data analysis for rat and mouse brain
  • Compartmental modelling of simple and complex kinetics

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Facilities

Pre-clinical imaging platforms

  • PET/CT system (Inveon, Siemens). The performance of this system is presented in Visser et al., J. Nucl. Med., 2009.Imaging platform: PET-CT-Inveon-Siemens
  • Dual-head SPECT/CT system (X-FLEX, GMI/GE). The performance of this system can be found in McElroy, IEEE TNS, 2005.Imaging platform: Dual-head SPECT/CT, X-FLEX, GMI/GE)
  • Gamma-counter (Wallac Wizard 2480).
    Imaging platform: Gamma-counter, Wallac Wizard 2480

In vitro laboratories

Histology

Our histology laboratory is equipped with:

  • cryostat
  • microtome
  • paraffin embedding station
  • light and fluorescent microscopes
    In vitro lab facilities: Microscope 
Autoradiography

We are equipped with facilities to perform autoradiographic experiments (in vitro and in vivo) using various radioligands, including:

  • small and large cryostats
  • densitometer
  • dark room facilities for film development,
  • phosphorimager (Fuji BAS5000, GE) using special resuable imaging plates
    Autoradiography facilities: phosphorimager, Fuji BAS5000, GE
  • image analysis systems (Image J, Image-Pro, MultiAnalyst) for quantification of autoradiographs.

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Related research

Pre-clinical imaging research activities

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