Chemical Exchange Saturation Transfer (CEST) has been making great strides in the last 20 years. A favourite of “high impact” journal, did the technique, set to provide an intrinsic in vivo chemistry-based amplification system for small molecules in solution, really live up to its expectation? In this talk, I will be going through some of the most hopeful, and also some of major issues still to be solved while the first clinical applications of CEST are slowly emerging.
Discussion points of the webinar:
Is GlucoCEST going to make it to the clinics?
What are the quantities that can be assessed by CEST? Can we ensure that we can measure them and how precisely?
How specific are CEST-based assessment of metabolites?
by Prof. Xavier Golay
Brain Repair & Rehabilitation, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology
Professor Golay’s research interests lie at the intersection of many disciplines, such as NMR physics, chemistry, physiology and neuroscience. They include the development of MRI as a translational tool for neurological diseases, measuring identical image-based biomarkers from mouse to human, and from the laboratory to the clinical settings. As translation has many meanings, parts of his most important research interests include the development of MRI techniques to be used as image-based outcome measures or biomarkers in the same way in animal model of diseases or in human patients. His hope is to reduce the cycle of drug development in neurological diseases by allowing academic or pharmaceutical institutions to use similar tests across species.