Cubresa's new NuPET scanner enables simultaneous PET/MRI in existing third-party MRI systems

Cubresa's NuPET™ scanner enables simultaneous preclinical molecular and functional imaging. The PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scanner inserts into existing MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) systems and can speed drug development and clarify disease mechanisms for biomedical researchers.

A compact PET scanner called NuPET™ has been commercially released for simultaneous preclinical PET (Positron Emission Tomography) and MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) in existing third-party MRI systems. PET and MRI are complementary imaging methods for better understanding disease and testing novel treatments in small animal subjects. Simultaneous PET/MRI imaging offers a solution to many challenges that face researchers who wish to correlate biochemical and physiological changes in their subjects.

Cubresa Inc., a medical imaging company that develops and markets molecular imaging systems, today announced the release of its NuPET™ scanner and that systems have already been shipped and installed.

“Simultaneous PET/MRI lets us discover new relationships between functional and molecular processes during development of new drugs and disease diagnostics,” says Dr. Steven Beyea, scientific lead for BIOTIC (Biomedical Translational Imaging Centre) at the Izaak Walton Killam Health Centre in Canada. “An example is that with our NuPET™ system, we can now correlate metabolic and vascular changes due to cancer, which will enable us to understand the impact of novel therapeutics.”

Scientists can currently scan their subjects on two separate PET and MRI machines. However, significant challenges such as image registration, changing animal physiology and data obtained at different times can hamper breakthroughs.

“The NuPET™ system will provide scientists with the ability to monitor structural, functional and molecular changes under identical physiological conditions, since changes are observed at the same time,” says George Abe, CEO of Cubresa. “This gives scientists confidence when evaluating multi-modal data, and could potentially reduce the number of animals required to reach scientific conclusions.”

Cubresa will be showcasing the NuPET scanner in Booth 519 at the 24th Annual Meeting of the ISMRM (International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine) in Singapore May 7—13, 2016.