Faculty & Staff

Ivan Pedrosa, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor
Vice Chair, Radiology Research
Core Director
Research Lab

Orhan Öz, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor
Division Chief, Nuclear Medicine
Medical Director
Research Lab

Xiankai Sun, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Director, Cyclotron & Radiochemistry Program
Research Lab

Spencer Bowen, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
PET Research Scientist
Research Lab

Aditi Mulgaonkar, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Officer, Cyclotron Regulatory Affairs

Kelli Key, Ph.D.
Research Operations Manager

Sonia Hill, B.S.
Research Programs Manager

Elizeva Phillips, B.S., CNMT, RT(R)(N)(ARRT)
PET Technologist

Abey Thomas, RT(R), MR
MR Technologist

Resources

GE Discovery MI PET/CT (5 ring)

In January 2020, the Department of Radiology installed a GE Discovery IQ five ring PET/CT dedicated to research in the NE2 building, in close proximity to our cyclotron facility. This state-of-the-art digital time-of-flight (TOF) PET/CT scanner provides a 26 cm axial field of view with the highest noise equivalent count rate (NECR) of the commercially available PET/CT scanners. This scanner has very high NEMA sensitivity (266 kcps), which can be exploited to either reduce the dose of radiotracer employed or the image acquisition time. The five-ring system was chosen because its coverage facilitates whole body PET/CT studies by reducing the number of bed positions required. It has both respiratory and cardiac gating capabilities. The CT scanner component is 128 slice Revolution Evo. A dedicated software package (Dynamic Vue) for quantitative analysis of PET data, including 4D PET datasets, is available.

Siemens Biograph mMR PET/MRI

In 2021, the Department of Radiology purchased a Siemens 3T Biograph mMR scanner. The scanner is capable of simultaneous MRI and PET imaging and is the only one of its type in the North Texas Region. It is a 3 Tesla MRI system with a 60 cm short bore diameter, 50 cm FOV, 45 mT/m gradients @ 200 T/m/s with up to 9 um resolution and zero helium boil-off technology. It has an actively shielded whole-body gradient coil system providing state-of-the-art spatial and temporal resolution. It has full neurofunctional, cardiac, musculoskeletal and body MR imaging capabilities including structural, blood flow, vascular structures, oncologic applications, and metabolic PET. Tim optimized MR coils and the mMR Tim table improve consistency of PET imaging and minimize attenuation of PET signal. The integrated PET has an axial FOV of 25.8 cm, transaxial FOV of 59.4 cm centered on the MRI isocenter providing true simultaneous MRI and PET imaging. The fully-integrated PET detectors use APD technology and LSO crystals (eight rings with 56 detectors blocks per ring, each consisting of 8×8 arrays of 4×4×20 mm3 crystals read out by a 3×3 array of APDs). Reconstructed transverse spatial resolution is 4.3-5.2 mm (FWHM). The scanner is used for both pediatric and adult clinical and research applications with dedicated pediatric MRI-conditional anesthesia available.

Cyclotron Facility

Equipped with a GE PETrace cyclotron (16.5 MeV and 130 µA of proton beam or 60 µA of deuteron beam), this facility is capable of routine production of [15O], [13N], [11C], [18F] and other longer-lived radioisotopes (64Cu, 68Ga, and 89Zr) at high specific radioactivity for the development and delivery of a wide range of clinical and preclinical PET radiotracers (> 30) in a cGMP-certified radiopharmacy and a research radiochemistry laboratory. In addition, this facility encompasses state-of-the-art analytical chemistry and quality assurance facilities equipped with high-end instruments including Agilent ICP/MS and Q-TOF LC/MS.

Small Animal Imaging

Siemens Inveon PET/CT Multimodality System

Built on the Siemens Inveon acquisition architecture, the Inveon Multimodality system fully integrates each modality into a common data acquisition system for automatic transition between modes and seamless coordination of CT and PET data acquisition. With a high performance variable focus x-ray source and a high resolution, low noise, 14-bit x-ray imaging detector with 4064 ´ 4064 pixels, the Inveon microCT Module is a high resolution 3D anatomic imaging system that can be configured for virtually any preclinical imaging application from 15 micron bone imaging to whole body studies. The Inveon PET Module is a fourth-generation state-of-the-art microPET scanner. Its key features include: 12 cm bore; 12 cm axial FOV; 10 cm transaxial FOV; 312 ps time bin width; 4.1ns coincidence window; 1.74 ns FWHM system timing performance; <18% at 511keV for all detector elements; > 10% Point-source Sensitivity (at CFOC); and < 1.4 mm Spatial Resolution (center). A 64-bit Visualization Workstation supports the display and analysis of large image volumes assisted by a 6-node Linux cluster. This platform can display up to 8 Gbyte datasets and is ideal for high resolution microCT. In addition, specifically designed for the multimodality system, the Inveon Research Workplace (IRW) is an image review, fusion and data analysis software to enable efficient research producing repeatable and reliable analysis results. The analysis workflows provide a wide range of easy-to-use tools, which are presented in an intuitive interface. Analysis of static, gated and dynamic data is supported with up to three different data sets being loaded simultaneously, which is made possible by a built-in preclinical physiological monitoring system that simultaneously monitors and generates TTL trigger signals from 3 standard input channels: Respiration, Temperature and ECG.

Mediso NANOSCAN PET/CT (PET122S/CT12

This recently installed dual-modality integrated system is equipped with the high-end PET subsystem (PET122S) capable to image larger animals with increased count rate, and a dedicated CT subsystem with 80W X-ray source and variable magnification. The seamlessly integrated and automated PET/CT gantry ensures no compromise in any modality. The system is also equipped with cardiac and respiratory gating capabilities as well as complete animal handling and monitoring system. The PET122S Subsystem is configured with a stationary ring system, which is made of pixelated LYSO scintillator matrix integrated with dual position sensitive photosensor, flat panel photomultiplier tube (256 channels each PS-PMT). Crystal pixel size: 1.12 × 1.12 × 13 mm. Pitch size: 1.17 mm. 36,504 crystals. The diameter of the inner bore is 16 cm; Axial field-of-view: 9.4 cm (total scanning length 30 cm); Transaxial field-of-view: 12 cm. The system’s energy resolution is 19%; its spatial resolution is 0.7 mm with proprietary 3D reconstruction (verified by Derenzo phantom); 1.25mm @5mm axial, NEMA-NU 4-2008 standard. The detection Efficiency: 8% (NEMA NU 4-2008; 250-750 keV; peak absolute); Timing Resolution: 1.2 ns; Peak NEC for Mouse: 850 kcps @ 60 MBq (NEMA NU 4-2008); Peak NEC for Rat: 250 kcps @ 60 MBq (NEMA NU 4-2008); Acquisition Mode: List mode. The system is capable of respiratory & cardiac gating (4D/5D imaging accessories: dockable connections for ECG respiratory gating and blood pressure monitoring system). Reconstruction methods include: 2D FBP and FORE; 2D & 3D ML-EM; 2D OSEM; 3D MAP Tera-Tomo™ with full detector modeling. The nanoScan CT12 Subsystem consists of X-ray generator (35-80 kV; 10-1000 μA), X-ray tube with focal spot size 33 μm, ultrafast X-ray detector (145 x 115 mm flat panel Gd2O2S CMOS detector with 3M pixel count, and 14bit readout) with magnification adjustable from 1.2 to 7.2. Real-time CT reconstruction affords spatial resolution up to 30 μm. In addition, medium-sized animals can be imaged with 30 cm scanning length. The NanoPET/CT scanner is also equipped with a MultiCell™ Multi-modality imaging system compatible animal imaging and transport system. The imaging cells are integrated with physiological monitoring system and anesthetic gas connection for any isoflurane system, which provides a pathogen free construction for immune compromised animals; closed, temperature-controlled system (up-tight container) with transparent cover; continuous digital temperature control by closed circuit airflow integrated into the wall of the chamber (including air pump); one-click docking possibility is ensured between imaging systems or preparation table with automatic co-registration and with animal fixation system for nanoScan® systems; avoidance of side effects of open airflow (dehydration of the eyes, contamination by pathogens etc.); and integrated head positioning for ultra-precise and reproducible stereotactic animal positioning. In addition, the MultiCell™ mouse system has a chamber inner space: 36 x 290 mm, and outer dimensions: 40 x 460 mm, which allows imaging of mice up to 50 g; the MultiCell™ rat system has a chamber Inner space: 65 x 440 mm, and outer dimensions: 70 x 580 mm, which allows imaging of rats up to 600 g. Furthermore, the MultiCell™ Multi-modality imaging system is MRI compatible. The NanoPET/CT scanner comes with a multi-modality post-processing complete suite, VivoQuant. It combines fundamental viewing functionality with powerful analysis capabilities. In addition, it supports data from most imaging modalities including MR, PET, SPECT, CT and Optical with PK modeling possibility in DICOM, and many proprietary, non-DICOM formats.

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