With a biomedical cyclotron and the capability to synthesize a variety of imaging radiotracers, the Cyclotron and Radiochemistry Program actively integrates Positron Emission Tomography (PET) with human, translational, and preclinical research at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

Since 2015, the Cyclotron and Radiochemistry Program (CRP) has been focusing on the development of three classes of radiotracers for PET imaging:

1. Radiotracers labeled with ¹⁸F (t_½= 110 min)
2. Radiotracers labeled with ¹⁵O, ¹³N, and ¹¹C (t_½ = 2 min, 10 min, and 20 min respectively) that are chemically indistinguishable from their nonradioactive counterparts
3. Macromolecules (e.g., antibodies and nanoconstructs) tagged with metal radioisotopes, such as ⁶⁴Cu and ⁸⁹Zr (t_½ = 12.7 hours and 3.27 days)

The Program particularly benefits these fields:

• Neurosciences: Neurodegenerative diseases, traumatic brain injury, cerebrovascular diseases, epilepsy, movement disorders, etc.
• Psychiatry: Psychosis, treatment-resistant depression, drug abuse, autism, ADHD, etc.
• Oncology: Cancer initiation, proliferation, and dissemination; treatment response; tumor microenvironment and phenotyping; etc.
• Cardiology: Cardiotoxicity induced by drugs, coronary artery disease, myocardial ischemia, congestive heart failure, hypertrophy, complications of diabetes, etc.
• Metabolism: Intermediary metabolism of biomolecules (carbohydrates, lipids, nucleotides, amino acids, etc.)
• Biochemistry: Biomarker identification, drug discovery, pharmacokinetics of drugs, etc.
• Immunology: Autoimmune disease pathogenesis, immunotherapy, cancer immunology, etc.
• Innovative technologies: Nanomedicine, drug delivery, theranostics, etc.