Research Overview

Our group focuses on theranostic approaches with the goal to deliver new insights into tumor biology, heterogeneity and metabolism and their relationship and relevance to functional imaging and biomarker-driven treatments in nuclear medicine.
Theranostics use radioligands that bind to cell surface receptors on target cells. Radioligands labeled with isotopes such as Gallium-68 or Fluor-18 enable imaging of target expression by positron emission tomography (PET). The same or a similar ligand labeled with alpha or beta radiation emitting isotopes delivers therapeutic radiation specifically to target expressing tissues (radionuclide therapy; RNT). In contrast to conventional radiotherapy, RNTs are systemically administered; as a consequence, metastases throughout the body can be targeted, and tumors are irradiated for hours to days.
Radionuclide therapy is a promising treatment option for various cancers. However, outcomes are rarely curative. We address this clinical need by investigating new RNT modalities and the mechanisms underlying the limited effectiveness of RNT. These mechanisms include, for example, tumor cell intrinsic resistance mechanisms, tumor protection by microenvironmental factors, and a suboptimal radiotherapeutic strategy. Poor understanding of these mechanisms represents a key barrier to the development of more effective RNT approaches. To improve radionuclide therapy outcomes and to establish rationally chosen, translatable RNT-based combination therapies, we characterize cancer mouse models and patient samples, and use diverse in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo analyses to identify targetable RNT-induced alterations in tumor, stroma and immune cells that mitigate the effects of RNT and could be exploited therapeutically.
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