Context and challenges

Early diagnosis of chronic inflammation for one can improve patient care by introducing therapies at a reversible stage of the diseases. It can also be employed as a prognostic marker or to monitor therapies. Circulating biomarkers, although extremely valuable, lack specificity or sensitivity, especially for detecting and localizing low grade chronic inflammation. VCAM-1 is minimally expressed in healthy vessels but overexpressed throughout all the duration of the inflammatory process. The LRB laboratory has developed a single domain antibody (sdAb)-based imaging agent for the nuclear imaging of VCAM-1 (cAbVCAM1-5), currently the first anti VCAM-1 imaging agent to have reached phase I clinical trial (NCT04483167), as a vulnerable atherosclerotic plaque tracer. 

Objective

The aim of the present project is to further evaluate cAbVCAM1-5 diagnostic and prognostic value in preclinical models of spondyloarthritis, myocardial infarction, and neuroinflammation in order to pave the way of future clinical evaluations. In addition, cAbVCAM1-5 potency for MRI and MPI is going to be evaluated as an alternative to nuclear imaging.