EATRIS is an organisation that brings together over 155 translational medicine institutes. This means that many amazing treatments and innovations are being developed every day for the benefit of the patients. As a part of the Swedish Spotlight Programme, we are highlighting some of the promising research happening in EATRIS Sweden.
We had the pleasure of interviewing Gunnar Antoni, Adj. Professor in Pharmaceutical Radiochemistry at the Department of Medicinal Chemistry at the Uppsala University and the Head of the Uppsala University Hospital PET Centre.
Tell us a bit about yourself.
I was born in 1956 in Sweden in 1976 I started my chemistry/biomedical studies at Uppsala University, resulting in a PhD in organic chemistry/radiochemistry in 1986. After a postdoc position at Brookhaven National Laboratory in the USA, I received a grant for 4 years of continued research in radiochemistry at Uppsala University. In 1991, I became an associate professor, the same year the Uppsala University positron emission tomography (PET) Centre was inaugurated, where I held a position as a radiochemist. Uppsala University Hospital took over the PET Centre and in 2012 I was appointed Head of the PET Centre which is my current position. In 2016 I was appointed Adj. Prof in Pharmaceutical radiochemistry at the Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Uppsala University. My research has been in radiochemistry, preclinical and clinical PET with a total of >160 publications and some book chapters.
I was involved in the creation of the Uppsala University PET Centre and am responsible for the development of the new GMP PET-radiochemistry laboratory which will be operational in November 2025. One of my most important scientific achievements is my participation in the development of [11C]PIB, which was the first amyloid PET-tracer for the visualisation of senile plaque in the brain of AD patients, which was later followed by studies in cardiac amyloidosis.
How are you connected to EATRIS?
I work in two EATRIS member institutions: Uppsala University and Uppsala University Hospital. I also represented these institutions at the EATRIS steering committee for the Inflammation and Imaging Hub.
You had a leading role in the cooperation between EATRIS and GSK; could you please describe the result of the cooperation?
In collaboration with GlaxoSmithKlein (GSK), a PET tracer for the study of neutrophil elastase was developed. This turned out to be an extremely useful PET tracer for the study of sterile inflammation as a measure of an overreacting immune response. The preclinical publication describing the development work was selected as the best article in Nuc Med Biol 2022 and awarded the Bill Eckelman Prize.
The research has since then expanded a lot, and several preclinical studies have resulted in publication showing the usefulness of [11C]GW457427 (coined [11C]NES). Two studies have been performed in porcine disease models for acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and sepsis with very interesting results. In 2023 a first-in-man study was published in J Nuc Med “In Vivo Visualization and Quantification of Neutrophil Elastase in Lungs of COVID-19 Patients – A First-In-Human Positron Emission Tomography Study with 11C-NES”. So far 13 clinical PET studies have used [11C]NES started covering immune-mediated inflammation in a multitude of different diseases.
What is your current research focusing on and what’s the potential impact on human health?
My main research areas are neutrophil-mediated inflammation and neurodegeneration related to tau-aggregates in the brain. Especially the research related to overacting immune responses, using [11C]NES, in a multitude of diseases such as cancer, endometriosis, inflammatory bowel disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and interstitial lung diseases, will give clinical information on the molecular level which may lead to the implementation of new diagnostic imaging investigations and potentially lead to new treatment paradigms.
What challenges do you face in this field or your research in general, and how do you approach overcoming them?
Apart from the economic issues, PET research is generally rather expensive, patient recruitment for clinical research is resource-demanding and Uppsala University Hospital is situated in a small city thus we require extended timelines to include enough patients.
What future trends or technologies in translational medicine excite you the most, and how might they influence your work?
The main new technology in PET is the Large Field Of View (LAFOV) PET-CT camera which allows scanning of the whole body of a human subject in one frame. The increased sensitivity opens opportunities for multi-tracer protocols with several administrations of PET tracers without exceeding the radiation dose limits.
Technology has limits, but tracer development is limitless. There are always opportunities for a new PET tracer based on new chemical structures. Therefore, the most exciting perspectives for the future are the development of selective and specific PET tracers for functional proteins such as receptors and enzymes that we currently lack in vivo PET biomarkers for.
Highlights in your collaboration with EATRIS?
The highlight of the EATRIS project is the successful development of a PET tracer for neutrophil elastase which I described above.
