UKRI-MRC Mid-Range Equipment Funding - PET scanner for Imperial College Clinical Imaging Facility

Imperial College London is a world class institution renowned for developing and applying tracers for special imaging scans called positron emission tomography (PET). This is a type of brain imaging that allows specific abnormalities to be detected non-invasively. We are requesting a grant from MRC to fund a new PET scanner that will replace our existing 16-year-old machine that has reached the end of its life.

We have a large number of research studies that are on-going or about to start. We will not be able to do this work without this funding. Our University is unable to pay for a new scanner, although they have agreed to part fund the proposed scanner, and other sources of this type of funding are very limited. Hence, the funding is critically important to continuing our clinical research in this area.

Our PET research investigates a number of important disease areas, including dementia, traumatic brain injury, mental health issues such as depression and addiction, and cancer. We will particularly focus on developing new ways to diagnose specific types of disease and will use the scanner to measure the effects of new treatments. More accurate diagnosis and more specific treatments will ultimately improve patients health across a range of diseases.

One example of our work is the development of new treatments for dementia. We are entering a new era in dementia because exciting new treatments are available that target the key dementia pathologies in the brain. Unfortunately, we cannot rely on the symptoms of dementia to guide treatment choices because different brain pathology can produce the same symptoms e.g. memory disturbance.

Hence, we need to use diagnostic technologies like PET to identify specific pathologies in each patient. Positron emission tomography is a key imaging technology in this respect, as a new generation of PET scanning provides accurate information about the specific types of brain pathology that cause different types of dementia.

The new scanner will be housed in our University scanning facility, the Imperial College Clinical Imaging Facility (ICCIF). It will replace our existing scanner, minimising environmental impact. Compared with our existing scanner, the new scanner is also more environmentally friendly, as it will be more energy efficient and offer improved sensitivity to detect disease in different parts of the body.

The University location provides an ideal setting for the complex imaging studies we will undertake. We have the expert staff on site that are needed to support the work and the time to devote to running the long scans required. This type of work is impossible to do on NHS PET scanners, as they are not set up to measure all the relevant information, lack expertise in the NHS teams and are under too much time pressure to do the scans.

Imperial College is leading multicentre international studies involving different centres in the UK, Europe, Canada, United States and Australia, and ICCIF is an integral part of delivering these international collaborations. ICCIF is located at Hammersmith campus, which serves a diverse community in and around East Acton, White City council estate and nearby underprivileged areas.

ICCIF has well-developed research governance and a management committee that includes academics with extensive experience in delivering complex programmes of research.