Target audience – The presented talk is for scientists and clinicians who are interested in using CEST probes for molecular and cellular imaging, and who wish to learn about the important principles upon which they should be designed.
Outcome/Objectives– The presentation will give the audience an overview of already developed and used CEST probes and provide the learners with the basic knowledge needed to design novel CEST probes for applications of interest (i.e., monitoring reporter genes expression, pH, etc.). Moreover, the combination of ¹⁹F-MRI and CEST-MRI to obtain a new type of contrast, ¹⁹F-CEST, will be highlighted.
Purpose – The presentation will shed light on the design and use of CEST probes, from the synthesis point of view through their potential applications and remaining challenges in the field
Discussion – One of the most attractive features of CEST imaging is its ability to detect metal-free molecular probes. CEST probes are either naturally occurring compounds (amino acids, sugars, nucleosides, native proteins) or they can be artificially engineered (synthetic probes or recombinant proteins). They can be administered either as exogenous agents or can be genetically (over) expressed. Moreover, they can be precisely designed to achieve the desired biochemical properties for fine-tuning optimized imaging schemes. The availability of these imaging probes and their versatility allow their use in wide range of applications in molecular imaging from monitoring glucose uptake, through studying reporter gene expression, pH changes and metal ions levels.
Conclusion–The field of CEST MRI offers chemists, biologists and clinicians the opportunity to design large arrays of metal-free MRI sensors that can tackle particular questions. The prevention of metal element as part of the imaging probe should be a great advantage when a proposed imaging probe is considered for clinical translation.

Acknowledgements

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References

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