Research summary
Radiopharmaceuticals are drugs containing radioactive isotopes that can be used to help detect, stage and treat a variety of diseases, such as cancer and severe bacterial infections. Dr. Eric Price, Canada Research Chair in Radiochemistry, is working to create new chemical reagents to use as tools for developing next-generation radiopharmaceuticals to help detect and treat diseases like these.
He and his research team are creating a library of modular and versatile chemical tools to improve many aspects of modern radiopharmaceuticals used in clinical practice. They are painstakingly designing and synthesizing these tools to be modular, much like LEGO pieces: by swapping certain modules for others, they aim to assemble new chemical groups that could theoretically target any type of cancer or bacteria. Ultimately, their goal is to solve real-world problems that currently hinder molecular imaging and radionuclide therapy.