The molecular imaging directed research carried out at Partner's 3 Institution, the Laboratory for Gene Therapy and Molecular Imaging at the MPI for Neurological Research, Koehln, aims primarily towards the development of new molecular targeted for gliomas, whiwh are being developed by aids of molecular imaging technology.

The Koeln Technological and Training Platform will offer training for scientists and students in various specialities:

• Molecular biology/biochemistry: focus on vector development, development of new marker gene / marker substrate combinations and imaging transcriptional regulation.
• Radiochemistry: focus on development of more lipophilic PET marker substrates passing the blood-brain barrier.
• Physics and informatics : focus on image co-registration.

The Laboratory for Gene Therapy and Molecular Imaging is equipped with S2-laboratory for cloning and generating HSV-1 vectors; radiochemistry laboratory for the development of improved PET marker substrates; radiactive S2-animal laboratory for application of HSV-1 vectors and PET marker substrates in vivo; radioactive S2-PET laboratory for imaging animals and man. One room is reserved for animal experiments only harboring one dedicated high-resolution LSO-PET-scanner (Siemens ECAT HRRT), a microPET (Concord), and an optical imaging camera (Kodak). An MRI-laboratory (7T-MRI; Bruker; Head: Prof. Dr. M. Hoehn) for high-resolution imaging of stem cells is also available.

The Koeln Platform (Partner 3, MEK, Germany) will install an optical imaging camera provided by BIOSPACE (Partner 6, BIOSP, France) in order to make correlations between microPET and optical imaging of gene expression to follow the effects of gene and other molecular targeted therapy. Most important issue is the direct comparison of sensitivity and spatial resolution with regards to non-invasive assessment of gene expression by both imaging methods.

MATHODIC (Partner 40, MATHODIC, Germany) will be involved for software solutions for imaging-coregistration of MRI, PET and optical imaging for cell trafficking.

The training will be performed in groups of max 6 trainees. Entire training activities could take from 3 full man.months and 1 month of laboratory time for the first year, involving both postdoc and engineer staff time, to 6 full man.months and 5 months of laboratory time for the following years as trainings sessions will be progressively added over the duration of the project.