Darya Tsvirkun
Institute of Drug Research,The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Biography
Darya Tsvirkun began her career oriented towards the development and evaluation of PET 11C-tracers for imaging and quantification of myocardial perfusion, receiving the Dean's Excellence Award. Her contemporary research focuses on development and synthesis of new libraries of activity based probes (ABPs) labeled with various CT contrast agents for cysteine proteases for cancer imaging. This project will significantly advance the molecular imaging field that is rapidly developing world-wide by creating dramatically enhanced imaging reagents. Having tools that can allow non-invasive imaging of protease activity in vivo is a powerful research tool. The use of ABPs to investigate biological regulation is an exceptionally powerful method as it enables real time monitoring of enzymatic activity and localization in vivo. Most importantly, CT probes that identify cathepsin activity can be widely applied to image human tumor location and grade, and can also be used to determine therapy efficacy.
Abstract
Abstract : Size-Dependent Targeted GNPs as CT Contrast Agents for Molecular Imaging of Cancer