MISSION
To introduce advanced PET scanner technology that will overcome a number of the major restrictions that current scanners impose on realising the full potential of PET in clinical medicine and research.
PET Scanning 2020
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Poor image quality-not recording all of the available signal
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Limited to scanning selected body regions at any one time-recording of regional total body tracer kinetics is not possible
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Not non-invasively fully quantitative-needs arterial blood sampling
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Radiation dose restrictions-limits applications
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Limited access to imaging bio-markers-short shelf life of distributed bio-markers
SOLUTION
Total body axial coverage of the subject being scanned thereby capturing all the emitted signal.
EFFECTING THE SOLUTION
Total Body PET
The vision of a Total Body PET scanner has been considered for some time. However, it was not until the formation in 2011 of a consortium in the USA known as EXPLORER with the goal of constructing the World’s first Total Body PET scanner, did this begin to become a reality. The consortium is led by the University of California, Davis, (Simon Cherry and Ramsey Badawi), in collaboration with research groups at the University of Pennsylvania (Joel Karp) and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Bill Moses). In 2013, I was asked to join the consortium as a consultant, with academic affiliation as a visiting professor to the University of California, Davis. The focus of my contribution has been to identify the projected unique clinical research applications this advanced PET scanner technology would bring about. In late 2015, Simon Cherry and Ramsey Badawi were awarded a Transformative RO1 grant from the National Institutes of Health under their High-Risk, High Reward program to build the World’s first Total Body PET/CT scanner.
As a result, the Chinese radiology company: United Imaging Healthcare (UIH) undertook to construct the first Total Body PET Scanner. This was completed in 2018, and the first human studies undertaken at UIH In the Fall of 2018. The scanner was transfered to UC Davis and the first human studies undertaken in June 2019