MILabs VECTor/CT installed by Molecular Imaging Center Antwerp (MICA) in Belgium

Feb 18 2013

MILabs B.V. is pleased to announce that the Molecular Imaging Center Antwerp (MICA) in Belgium has installed a MILabs VECTor/CT to enhance their portfolio of pre-clinical nuclear oncology and neurology imaging and research capabilities. The VECTor/CT is a unique product offering from MILabs, being the only existing system capable of performing true simultaneous sub‐mm SPECT and PET. It delivers unsurpassed high resolution single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and positron emission tomography (PET) imaging, the fastest dynamic scanning (SPECT) and the ability to perform adaptive imaging i.e. SPECT and PET resolution and sensitivity selection in a single system.

The primary lead for the utilization of this system will be Professor Steven Staelens, focusing on neurology (addiction, depression, schizophrenia, neurostimulation), oncology (apoptosis, autophagy, early tumor response) and compound screening.

The Molecular Imaging Center Antwerp is the second institution in Belgium to obtain a MILabs system, the first one being the University of Ghent. This installation indicates the continuous growing demand for high‐end molecular imaging systems that can provide unparalleled resolution, speed and sensitivity—features that are integral elements of the MILabs family of systems.

About MICA

Since 2010, the University of Antwerp and its University Hospital have become one of the few academic centers in Europe with a fully equipped small animal molecular imaging center, a radiopharmacy staff and a state‐of‐the‐art nuclear medicine department. The strength of the Molecular Imaging Center Antwerp (MICA) lies in its multi‐disciplinary team and its strong translational interest from within the hospital. MICA is a combination of radiopharmacy (cyclotron unit), nuclear medicine and the small animal imaging center. Within this solid entity the clinical experts run the hospital group, select the multicenter trials and set the scientific goals for clinical nuclear medicine research. The radiopharmacy department runs the daily productions for the hospital and has a scientific subdepartment for new tracer development. The small animal imaging center designs and runs all pre‐clinical studies whereby interaction with the medical doctors of the nuclear medicine group occurs to evaluate the clinical relevance. In addition, MICA is part of the Expert Group Antwerp Molecular Imaging (EGAMI, the inverse of ‘image’), which combines all bio‐medical imaging expertise of the University of Antwerp. EGAMI offers a diverse portfolio from live cell imaging to multimodal in vivo imaging including PET, SPECT, MRI, CT and optical imaging. For more information, visit www.biomedicalimaging.be and www.egami.be.

About MILabs

MILabs provides high‐end pre‐clinical molecular imaging solutions (SPECT/PET/CT) for biomedical and pharmaceutical research. Today these systems contribute worldwide to the development of new diagnostic solutions and therapies for diseases such as cancer, cardiac and neurodegenerative diseases,
depression and diabetes. U‐SPECT/CT provides the fastest, most sensitive and highest resolution smallanimal SPECT currently available. Recently MILabs introduced VECTor and VECTor/CT providing extremely user friendly, fully integrated and simultaneous ultra‐high resolution SPECT/PET.
www.milabs.com