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CNU Research Team Develops Bacteria Imaging Technology for Cancer Treatment

작성자대외협력과 작성일2020.05.27 09:40 조회58

CNU has developed 'Positron Tomography (PET) Molecular Imaging Technology' that non-invasively visualizes cancer treatment bacteria.

The research team of Professor Min Jung-jun (Department of Nuclear Medicine) and Professor Kang Se-ryeong (Department of Nuclear Medicine) at Hwasun CNU Hospital succeeded in imaging colitis germs injected into the body for the treatment of cancer using radioactive sorbitol.

The research team created a sorbitol labeled with radioactive fluorine, focusing on the use of sorbitol as a nutrient for gram-negative intestinal bacteria such as E. coli or Salmonella, and attempted PET imaging to accurately visualize the distribution of E. coli injected into the body for therapeutic purposes. In addition, it was confirmed that the higher the consumption level of sorbitol in the tumor, the better the cancer suppression effect.

For cell therapy using live immune cells or microorganisms, the distribution of therapeutic agents in the tumor is very important. That is, it means that the therapeutic effect is high and safe when the cells for treatment are accumulated in tumors and removed from other internal organs early. Therefore, the molecular imaging technique that can non-invasively evaluate the distribution of therapeutic agents in the body is very important to determine the success or failure of this treatment.

The research team said, “Until now, there was a hassle of artificially expressing the image reporter gene in order to image the bacteria for treatment of cancer, but in this study, imaging was performed using the unique mechanism of the treatment bacteria without additional genetic manipulation. In this regard, the clinical applicability of this technology is very high."

After completing the domestic patent registration, this technology was filed for an overseas patent.

This research has been carried out with the support of the Ministry of Science and ICT's Future Promising Convergence Technology Pioneer Project and the Ministry of Education's Personal Basic Research Support Project, and is now in an international academic journal in the field of molecular imaging diagnosis and treatment Theranostics (Impact factor: 8.063). It was published as a front-cover paper.