Bioorthogonal tools for 68Ga-PET imaging applications

AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, the Austrian research institute with European format which focuses on the key infrastructure issues of the future, is looking to strengthen its team with the immediate appointment of a

Doctoral Thesis “Bioorthogonal tools for 68 Ga -PET imaging applications”

Bioorthogonal ligations have emerged recently as versatile and efficient chemical tools for forming covalent linkages within high complex environments such as living organisms. The concept of pre-targeting has gained special interest in nuclear medicine applications, especially in positron emission tomography (PET) imaging. In this approach, a chemical reporter bearing a bioorthogonal reactive group (tag) is administered, followed by a secondary agent which reacts with the tag. By using this methodology, complex imaging agents, that may require long accumulation times within the body for efficient visualization might be accessible as the commonly short half-life of standard PET radioisotopes ( 18F: 109.8 min; 11C: 20.4 min) restricts their applicability. Aim of this thesis is, together with the Institute of Applied Synthetic Chemistry of Vienna´s University of Technology, to explore potential novel labeling strategies to radiolabel complex biomolecules with 68Ga. Together with AIT-team of imaging experts, selected biomolecules will be biologically characterized and their suitability to image complex imaging targets will be evaluated.

Work description:
 Development of PET imaging agents (incl. synthesis of precursor compounds and radiolabeling) and novel synthetic strategies using bioorthogonal ligation techniques
 Biological characterization of PET tracers
 Contribution to on-going projects with focus on novel PET imaging applications, scientific publications and project deliverables

Requirements:
 Master degree in chemistry (or related field)
 Experimental background in organic chemistry and synthesis including compound characterization (NMR, HPLC, LC-MS, GC-MS)
 Knowledge and hands-on experience in peptide- and protein chemistry (bioconjugation, bioanalytics) desirable