Our young professionals here at TRIUMF, Eric Price and Hua Yang, have both been recognized and awarded by the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI). They represent the extraordinary success and talent behind TRIUMF's Nuclear Medicine Program as both Eric and Hua will be presented with their awards at the June 2013 SNMMI Annual Meeting. This meeting is the world's largest educational and scientific event focused exclusively on the fields of molecular imaging and nuclear medicine. The Annual Meeting showcases research that promises to revolutionize health care, including topics that cover the potential of molecular imaging and therapy, the power of nuclear medicine and their impact on patient care.
UBC Chemistry and TRIUMF graduate student Eric Price has won the prestigious SNMMI Berson-Yalow Award 2013 for his abstract entitled "H4octapa-trastuzumab: An acyclic chelator-immunoconjugate with superior properties to DOTA for In-111/Lu-177 imaging and therapy". This winning abstract, which describes a new way to incorporate radiometals into antibodies and other biological agents, will also be published in the Abstract Book Supplement to the Journal of Nuclear Medicine, June issue. Under the collaborative supervision between Chris Orvig (UBC Chemistry) and Mike Adam (TRIUMF), Eric's research fits well with TRIUMF's recent initiatives in radiometal program. He will be presented the award just before the SMMI business meeting and Hal Anger Plenary Lecture on Monday morning, during the 2013 SNMMI Annual Meeting in Vancouver on June 11.
The Berson-Yalow Award, as explained by SNMMI, commemorates the work of Solomon A. Berson, MD, and Rosalyn S. Yalow, PhD (Nobel Laureate 1977), who pioneered the principle of the competitive binding assay and used it to develop the field of radioimmunoassay, which became a mainstay of early nuclear medicine. Since radioimmunoassay is no longer used extensively, this award is used to recognize outstanding original work in the field of Nuclear Medicine.
Hua Yang, an R&D support chemist at TRIUMF is the recipient of a 2nd place "Best Science" award from the SNMMI Young Professionals Committee (YPC). Hua's area of research is in radiotracers with a focus on oxidative stress imaging and her success landed her abstract titled "Development of 18F-labelled aminosuberic acid derivatives for in vivo analysis of cystine transporter expression and oxidative stress". The SNMMI YPC award is a young professional award that recognizes the best research-based presentation on basic science or clinical topics.
Through her research, Hua explains that how she and her supervisor Paul Schaffer, in collaboration with Dr. Jack Webster from GE Global Research and other collaborators from BC Cancer Agency and UBC, have developed an amino acid based tracer targeting the cystine transporter, system xc-, which is a biomarker for oxidative stress. Oxidative stress (OS) is a ubiquitous disease condition that is associated with a host of conditions, such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease and neurodegenerative disease. Normally, cystine transporters have low expression rates in most tissues, but become upregulated in cells undergoing OS in an effort to increase intracellular cysteine, the reduced form of cystine; cysteine is used to make glutathione, an important neutralizer of reactive species produced during OS. With tumour cells having increased OS, cystine transporters will be upregulated in tumour cells. Hua and her team members' success come from the fact that their tracer that they have developed has excellent tumour uptake in preliminary in vivo studies. With tracers targeting the cystine transporters, imaging the tumour becomes possible.
Hua will be presented with her award at the annual YPC Luncheon, held during the SNMMI Annual Meeting.
Congratulations again to Eric and Hua on their achievements!
-- by Elle Chau, Communications Assistant