ABL-101 Found to be a Promising Candidate for Use in Inflammation Imaging
Aurum in collaboration with an MRI research group based in Lausanne, Switzerland, led by Dr Ruud van Heeswijk and Dr Emeline Darçot, have tested the potential of ABL-101 to be used as an MRI inflammation diagnostic. This pre-clinical work, which was conducted on a 3T clinical scanner along with higher field systems, demonstrated that ABL-101 is a very promising contrast agent for inflammation and cell tracking.
The research, which can be found here, focused on the MRI signal characteristics of ABL-101. This particular work investigated ABL-101’s potential for imaging fluorine (19F) rather than the usual hydrogen (1H). 19F MRI has the advantage that there is little if any intrinsic fluorine in the human body and so all detected signal originates from the injected ABL-101, which contains a high proportion of 19F.
ABL-101 particles are removed from the body via the immune system, particularly via a mechanism involving uptake by macrophages. The macrophages involved in the inflammatory process engulf ABL-101 particles and concentrate them in areas of inflammation. This concentration of ABL-101 can be detected by MRI scanners that focus on 19F, allowing detection of areas of significant inflammation. This technology enables the development of ABL-101 for inflammation diagnostic imaging for conditions associated with a strong inflammatory component, such as atherosclerosis, Crohn’s disease, arthritis, pelvic inflammatory disease and infection.