The first NETRF/ERF Nuclear Medicine Pilot Research Grant has been awarded to Thomas Hope, MD, of the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF). NETRF is funding the grant to explore innovations in nuclear medicine focused on diagnosis and treatment. ERF—The Education and Research Foundation for Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging—solicited proposals and convened the scientific review panel to select the grantee.
Dr. Hope’s project is “Intra-Arterial Peptide Receptor Radionuclide Therapy (I-A PRRT) using 90Y DOTA-TOC.” The primary goals are to evaluate possible liver, bone marrow and kidney toxicity after hepatic arterial injection and evaluate imaging tumor response to 90Y-DOTA-TOC hepatic arterial injection three months after treatment. Dr. Hope’s co-principle investigators are Emily Bergsland, MD, and Nicholas Fidelman, MD.
Dr. Hope is a junior faculty member at UCSF and finished his fellowship in 2013. He is a nuclear medicine physician and diagnostic radiologist. He has developed a number of projects focusing on neuroendocrine cancer in the past several years.
NETRF funding for the ERF grant is made possible through the generous support of the Margie and Robert E. Petersen Foundation.
“Seed funding from NETRF allows the initial development and support of translational clinical projects such as these that have the promise to directly affect patient care. This funding will allow us to treat our initial cohort of patients and collect preliminary data,” says Dr. Hope. “I greatly appreciate the support that NETRF provides and believe that it will lead to a direct and tangible effect on patient care.”