A role for in vivo imaging in infectious disease: driving drug discovery by monitoring treatment response

Euro-BioImaging is organizing an online User Forum on October 6, 2022, from 14:00-17:00 CEST. This event will highlight the importance of cutting-edge imaging technologies in support of fighting infectious diseases and showcase the specific expertise available at our Nodes across Europe through case studies presented in tandem with the research community.

At this event, learn how Ann-Marie Chacko and her colleagues combine molecular imaging efforts in drug discovery and early drug development (full abstract below).

Hear this talk and others like it on October 6 at the Euro-BioImaging User Forum: Fighting infectious Diseases.

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ABSTRACT:Emerging infectious diseases are major threats to global health and economic well-being. Using the lens of dengue virus (DENV), a flavivirus affecting almost half of the world’s population, little is understood about the pathophysiology of these infections and sites of disease activity within the body. As there are no effective vaccines or anti-viral therapeutics available to-date for treating DENV and other flaviviruses, more effective approaches are needed to understand disease progression and disease amelioration. This talk will highlight approaches to identifying non-invasive in vivo imaging biomarkers of flavivirus infection for clear mapping of target tissues involved in the acute phase of illness. The translation of these biomarkers as response indicators in anti-viral drug development will be described, with an emphasis will be made on early detection and rapid monitoring of infectious disease for appropriate management and control.

About Ann-Marie CHACKO, PhD

Assistant Professor, Cancer & Stem Cell Biology Programme

Head, Laboratory for Translational and Molecular Imaging (LTMI)

Co-Lead, Cancer ImmunoTherapy Imaging (CITI) Programme

Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore

As an Assistant Professor in the Duke-NUS Programme in Cancer and Stem Cell Biology, and Head of the Duke-NUS Laboratory for Translational and Molecular Imaging (LTMI), Dr. Ann-Marie Chacko works to combine molecular imaging efforts in drug discovery and early drug development. Through academic and industry collaborations through Duke-NUS’ world-class research programs, she leads the translational efforts for a portfolio of in vivo PET, SPECT, CT and optical imaging agents to noninvasively assess biologic, prognostic and therapeutic biomarkers for cancer, and viral infection. Of particular interest is the imaging of immune response and inflammation and its resolution in health and disease.

She currently leads a national initiative, the Cancer ImmunoTherapy Imaging (CITI) Programme, which received a S$22M Singapore Health and Biomedical Sciences (HBMS) Industry Alignment Fund Pre-Positioning (IAF-PP) grant in late 2018. This initiative aims to address the urgent call for biomarker-driven approaches to monitor tumour immune responses, leveraging on the expertise of its strong multidisciplinary team across 12 research organisations in Singapore and four research themes: Immunology, Chemistry, Imaging, and Clinical Trials.