New Project Uses Advanced Pet Imaging To Investigate Long Covid Mechanisms

Using total-body PET imaging to get a amended knowing of agelong COVID illness is nan extremity of a caller task astatine nan University of California, Davis, successful collaboration pinch UC San Francisco. The task is funded by a assistance of $3.2 cardinal complete 4 years from nan National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, portion of nan National Institutes of Health. 

About 1 successful 10 COVID-19 survivors create a scope of agelong COVID symptoms that tin past from months to years. How and why these symptoms create isn't wholly known, but they person been linked to activated immune T cells getting into organs and tissues. Researchers besides person linked agelong COVID to harm to nan soul lining of humor vessels. These events tin beryllium related, because humor vessels go leaky erstwhile T cells are activated nearby, but whitethorn besides beryllium coincidental because leaky humor vessels let much immune cells to time off nan humor and participate tissues. 

Negar Omidvari, adjunct task intelligence astatine nan UC Davis Department of Biomedical Engineering and main interrogator connected nan grant, will usage total-body positron emanation tomography (PET) technology, originally developed by Professors Simon Cherry and Ramsey Badawi astatine UC Davis, and kinetic modeling to look astatine some processes simultaneously successful patients pinch agelong COVID. 

Imaging nan full body

PET imaging usually uses short-lived radioactive tracers to measurement metabolic activity wrong nan body. Conventional PET tin only look astatine a azygous organ aliases a conception of nan assemblage astatine a time. The uEXPLORER PET scanner developed astatine UC Davis tin image nan full assemblage astatine nan aforesaid time, giving a overmuch much elaborate image of what is going connected successful nan body. 

Omidvari will collaborate pinch CellSight Technologies Inc. of San Francisco to usage a tracer called 18F-AraG, which specifically tags activated T cells. Using move total-body PET imaging and blase modeling, she intends to spot really activated T cells cod successful different organs astatine different times, wherever humor alloy harm is occurring, and whether these processes are related to each other. 

If we tin abstracted nan vascular harm from nan beingness of activated T cells successful tissue, we should beryllium capable to get a overmuch amended image of what's going on."

Negar Omidvari, adjunct task scientist, UC Davis Department of Biomedical Engineering

The squad will besides cheque humor samples for markers for inflammation and immune activation that correlate pinch PET imaging data.

The study will activity pinch patients from UCSF's agelong COVID programme (LIINC - Long-term Impact of Infection pinch Novel Coronavirus) who will beryllium scanned astatine baseline, 4 and 8 months. People who person afloat recovered from COVID-19 and person nary remaining symptoms will beryllium scanned arsenic controls.