Lars Johansson, CSO at Antaros Medical, is discussing imaging of fibrogenesis using positron emission tomography (PET) imaging at the Extracellular Matrix Pharmacology Congress this morning. His talk, titled ‘Fibrogenesis imaging in man with novel PET-PDGF probes enabling real-time fibrosis activity assessment’, will discuss using platelet derived growth factor beta (PDGFRβ) as a marker for ongoing fibrogenesis.
Fibrosis is a common end stage in many diseases and affects organs such as the liver, kidney, and heart. Current methods to assess fibrosis are invasive or not sensitive enough to detect changes in fibrosis such as the deposition of new fibrotic components (fibrogenesis).
PDGFRβ is a marker of ongoing fibrogenesis and is upregulated in activated hepatic stellate cells. ATH001 is a radiopharmaceutical that is being developed to probe the presence of PDGFRβ using positron emission tomography (PET) imaging. ATH001 enables tissue specific quantification of active fibrotic disease and shows strong promise as a non-invasive tool for imaging fibrogenesis, providing valuable insights into fibrotic diseases such as metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH).
The latest research using PDGFRβ-PET imaging will also be presented in a poster, P088: Positron emission tomography imaging of liver fibrogenesis in MASH by targeting PDGFR-beta.
The ECM Pharmacology Congress is hosted by the International Society of Extracellular Matrix Pharmacology (ISECMP) and takes place from 14-17 June in Copenhagen, Denmark. Find the whole programme here.
About Antaros Tracer
Antaros Tracer is a sister company to Antaros Medical, formed to ensure an expedited and focused development of new Positron Emission Tomography (PET) tracers to be used as important biomarkers in drug development studies. Current disease area focus is fibrotic disease and immune-system activation in immune-oncology, inflammatory disease, and immunology.
For more information: Antaros Tracer