Associate Professor Brett Paterson’s research focuses on the development of metal-based targeted radiopharmaceuticals for imaging and therapy. The team uses inorganic/organic chemistry to design and synthesise new targeted radiopharmaceuticals, in vitro techniques, and advanced molecular imaging to investigate the interplay between molecular structure and function in vivo. Recently, this has involved the development of theranostic radiopharmaceuticals for targeted alpha therapy. This seminar will present our work designing complexes that target cancer tissue by selectively binding enzymes or receptors that are over-expressed in tumours. The pre-clinical and clinical evaluation in tumour models will also be presented.

Associate Professor Brett Paterson is Head of Radiochemistry at The University of Queensland’s Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology and the Centre for Advanced Imaging. He received his PhD with Prof Paul Donnelly at the University of Melbourne. His research has been recognised by a Victoria Fellowship in 2011 and a Victorian post-doctoral research fellowship in 2013. Both awards allowed him to conduct research and receive specialist training at King’s College London and Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School. He was awarded an ARC Discovery Early Career Research Award in 2017. Associate Professor Paterson has been a chief investigator on ARC and NHMRC grants and is a co-inventor on three patents.