PET is Wonderful (PiW), established in 2015, is an academic and research-driven initiative that aims to support the development of new Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging tools for improved diagnosis and treatment of patients.

Within the PiW team in Edinburgh, new tools are being developed for better diagnosis and treatment of patients with cancer, heart diseases and neurological conditions. For example, one of our projects developed a new tool for scanning patients with heart disease that will allow doctors to better understand those diseases and to better treat their patients. This new tool is based on a highly specialized scanning technique called positron emission tomography or PET. This technique allows for the study of different processes happening inside the human body by injecting a small amount of a substance into patients. That substance is called a radiotracer and after injection it travels in the patients’ blood stream, reaches the target inside the body and emits a signal that can be detected outside the patients’ body using a very sensitive camera. Our new radiotracer, that we named LW223, was designed so it can target inflammation inside the body. In our research, we have shown that we can track LW223 signal inside the body over time in healthy conditions and post-heart attack. Result from this project have led to the successful progression of LW223 from the lab to the clinic.

Our research has also showed that whole-body PET analysis rather than single organ can be instrumental at improving prognosis of cancer patients. This new tool called “molecular fingerprinting” developed in Edinburgh allows for whole-person assessments versus current medical care focused on a single organ. It is known that whole-body PET used in the clinic is significantly compressed to quantification of the single primary site of disease (e.g. tumour), discarding all the other thousands of valuable datapoints in the whole-body image. This wasteful use of powerful whole-body PET images hinders multi-organ whole-person assessments, which are key to a number of human illnesses. The PiW team in Edinburgh aims to change this reality.

In addition to research, the PiW team is also actively engaged in creating new opportunities for researchers and boosting open science. Our online and in-person scientific meetings have engaged with hundreds of imaging scientists, clinicians and industry members world-wide. Since the launch of the PiW webpage over 33,000 site views from 15,000 visitors have been recorded. In the last five years only, the number of views and visitors to our PiW page doubled. This active engagement with the community has created a number of opportunities to enable new medical imaging discoveries, promote exchange of knowledge to accelerate research impact and ultimately deliver state-of-the-art imaging innovation for patients’ benefit.

Our summer scholarship programme has been tremendously successful, receiving applications from students and researchers from all continents in the world. This hands-on summer scholarship promotes education of the next generation of imaging scientists

Your donation will help us:

- Advance knowledge: Find new PET tools to improve diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of human diseases, including cancer, heart and brain diseases.

- Create new opportunities: Delivery of high-quality scientific meetings, including via support of early career researchers’ attendance to these meetings, as well as continued delivery of our summer scholarship programme.

- Boost open science: Support public engagement activities, open lab days, and open science platforms for dissemination of latest PET knowledge. Existing initiatives include The PET is Wonderful Journal.

- Enhance researchers’ experiences: Support transformation of student and staff experiences by improving research culture through visible recognition and reduction of academic precarity. Envisioned activities include student awards and staff bridge funding.

All donations are processed through the University of Edinburgh Development Trust before going directly to the PiW team.