Dr. Mirkka Sarparanta has received one of the 22 five-year Academy Researcher Fellowships awarded by the Research Council of Natural Sciences and Engineering of the Academy of Finland on 17 May, 2018. The topic of the research project will be on the development of new radiolabeling methods for the in vivo tracking of adoptively transferred T cells with positron emission tomography (PET) during cancer immunotherapy. The project aims to employ the fast and selective bioorthogonal radiolabeling methods as well as pretargeted approaches to this end. The goal is to develop non-invasive PET imaging probes to support basic discoveries in tumor-infiltrating T cell biology, and for the subsequent evaluation of therapeutic interventions and patient stratification in adoptive cell therapy. The award period is 1.9.2018–31.8.2023, and new postgraduate student and postdoctoral positions the project are expected to be open in 2019.
The group congratulates Mirkka on the success!
More information on the funding decision can be found on the Academy of Finland webpage.