Gordon Lecture: Methodology Development with Carbon-11 and Fluorine-18 for PET Applications

So Jeong Lee is currently a postdoctoral fellow at PET center in the Department of Radiology at the University of Michigan working with Prof. Peter J. H. Scott. She obtained her B.S and B.E in Chemistry and Material Science at SUNY Stony Brook University in 2010 and her Ph.D in Chemistry from Stony Brook University and BNL under Prof. Joanna S. Fowler’s mentorship in 2015.
Below is a summary of her presentation.

Positron emission tomography (PET) is a functional imaging technique that is used for clinical diagnostic imaging, as well as research applications in healthcare, the pharmaceutical industry, and even plant physiology. In this presentation, Dr. Lee discussed her work to develop rapid methods for preparing [11C]auxin and [11C]indole via [11C]cyanation for PET imaging. Automation of the synthesis of both radiotracers was conducted so they could be used for plant PET imaging with the goal of understanding plant physiology and phenotyping. The talk also covered the work in her lab developing fundamental methodology for nucleophilic C-H radiofluorination reactions with Ag18F and K18F via metal catalyzed C-H activation reactions that enable the late-stage formation of C-18F bonds to prepare PET radiotracers and radioligands. Finally, their work to design an efficient automated route to produce [18F]ASEM, a PET radioligand for imaging of α7-nAChR in the human brain, to support their clinical research was covered.