The Cotzias NeuroOncology Laboratory was originally set up in 1967 by Dr. Jerome Posner (then Chairman of the Department of Neurology); and Dr. Blasberg was recruited from NIH in 1990 to head the NeuroOncology PET Program at MSKCC.
Dr. Blasberg brought his experience in physiology, tracer kinetics, quantitative autoradiography, and PET imaging to the department and to the institution. Dr. Blasberg became a Member of the Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics Program in 1997 and was recently given an appointment in the Department of Radiology as well.
It should also be noted that Drs. Finn (Head, MSKCC cyclotron and radiochemistry core), Larson (Chief, Nuclear Medicine Service, Department of Radiology), and Blasberg collaborated and worked together while at NIH during the mid-to-late 1980s prior to coming to MSKCC. Dr. Tjuvajev joined the laboratory as a research fellow in 1991; he became an Assistant Laboratory Member in 1996 and an Associate Laboratory Biologist in 1999, and was recently given an additional appointment in the Department of Radiology.
The focus of current research is transgene (reporter gene) imaging using noninvasive nuclear and optical techniques (and using magnetic resonance imaging/spectroscopy in collaborative projects with J. Koutcher, Radiology and Medical Physics). The story of transgene imaging in our laboratory began in the years 1992 to 1993, using yeast glucokinase and radiolabeled 3-O-methylglucose (MG) as an imaging probe. A series of experiments showed that MG phosphorylation and accumulation occurred selectively in yeast with genetic upregulation of glucokinase expression, but the magnitude was relatively low and insufficient for imaging (unpublished data). In the summer of 1994, we switched from yeast glucokinase to the herpes simplex virus 1 thymidine kinase gene (HSV1-tk) and radiolabeled 5-iodo-2'-fluoro-2'deoxy-1-b-D-arabino-furanosyl-uracil (FIAU); the first of a series of papers was published in December 1995.
In this series of publications, we established a "proof of principle," namely, that transgene expression can be imaged and measured noninvasively using an appropriate combination of "marker/reporter" transgene and a "marker/reporter" substrate. Imaging was performed with currently available clinical imaging equipment (positron emission tomography, PET, and a gamma camera). This initial work resulted in a US patent entitled Noninvasive Imaging of Gene Transfer (#5703056, issued December 30, 1997); and to the best of our knowledge, this is the only patent given for noninvasive imaging of gene expression.
This work and intra-institutional collaborations have led to MSKCC recently receiving 2 NIH imaging-based awards: a P-50 award (In Vivo Cellular and Molecular Imaging Center (ICMIC); R. Blasberg, S. Larson and J. Koutcher are co-principal investigators) and a R-24 award (Small Animal Imaging Resource Program (SAIRP); J. Koutcher, principal investigator). An Imaging Core has also been established in the MSKCC Gene Therapy Program (MGTP), a PO1 award (D. Golde, principal investigator); R. Blasberg and S. Larson are co-leaders of this core.
