Prof. Marek Pruszyński, Ph.D., D.Sc.
A short lecture on nuclear medicine and radiopharmacy
In recent years there has been observed a rapid development in nuclear medicine, mostly due to enormous studies on the synthesis of new radiopharmaceuticals, i.e. compounds labeled with radionuclides. Those compounds together with development of new imagining techniques allow almost non-invasive glance into the human body and visualization of physiological processes. Thanks to them, detection of some pathological conditions including cancerous cells is possible, and the application of appropriate therapeutic agent allows their treatment at early stage.
The present lecture will shortly introduce to the topic of nuclear medicine and modern radiopharmacy. Various types of radiation used in nuclear medicine, the construction of simple and more complex radiopharmaceuticals, and the requirements that such compounds must meet before they find application in medicine will be presented and discussed. I will try to answer the question why, despite so many available radionuclides and many biologically active molecules, so far only few radiopharmaceuticals are available and used in a medical clinic.
Curriculum vitae
Academic Education and Positions:
- 2019 Professor of the Institute of Nuclear Chemistry and Technology in Warsaw, Poland
- 2018 Adjunct at the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Warsaw, Poland
- 2008 – 2019 Adjunct at the Laboratory for Synthesis and Development of Radiopharmaceuticals at the Institute of Nuclear Chemistry and Technology in Warsaw, Poland
- 2010 – 2013 Postdoctoral Research internship at Duke University Medical Center, Department of Radiology, Radiopharmaceutical Chemistry Laboratory, Durham, USA
- 2002 – 2008 Ph.D. studies at the Department of Radiochemistry at the Institute of Nuclear Chemistry and Technology in Warsaw, Poland
- 1997 – 2002 M.Sc. studies at the Department of Analytical Chemistry at the University of Białystok, Poland
Marek Pruszyński specializes in research and development of new radiopharmaceuticals for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Currently, he focuses on the use of alpha-emitters for direct labeling of biomolecules through bifunctional ligands and prosthetic groups or indirectly using nanoparticles. He received many national and international awards, including the Diploma and Special Award as well as the Platinum Medal at the IWIS Show (Warsaw, Poland, 2016) for the achievement of “Therapeutic radiopharmaceutical based on gold-labeled astatine-211 nanoparticles and the method of its production“. He is a co-author of the patent application for this achievement. He also received the Alavi-Mandell Award from the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging for the publication “Improved tumor targeting of anti-HER2 nanobody through N-succinimidyl 4-guanidinomethyl-3-iodobenzoate radiolabeling” in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine in 2014 and in 2008 a second prize of Grzegorz Białkowski Award in the competition organized by the Foundation for Polish Science for the best doctoral dissertation in the field of chemistry. He authored and co-authored 31 publications in international peer-reviewed and impacted journals, two book chapters and more than 90 scientific communications at the international or domestic conferences. He has H-index 11, sum of times cited without self-citations of 343 by Clarivative Analytics of Web of Science. He supervises and co-supervises 4 Ph.D. and more than 6 master and bachelor students. He is the scientific supervisor of many domestic and foreign trainees undergoing internships at the Institute of Nuclear Chemistry and Technology. During his scientific career he did internships in the national and international institutions related to the use of radionuclides in nuclear medicine, e.g. The Institute of Cancer Research (London, UK). He is a scholarship holder of the Fulbright Foundation (Duke University, USA). He is a member of Polish Nucleonic Society, Polish Chemical Society and European Society of Molecular Imaging. He acts as a reviewer for the Theranostics, Pharmaceuticals, Cancers, Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, Applied Radiation and Isotopes and others. He is a Principal Investigator in 6 projects and co-investigator in many others related to development of new diagnostic and therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals and testing their biological effectiveness.