# Development of novel human Fab probes for PET imaging of macrophages

> **NIH NIH R01** · YALE UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $677,520

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Macrophages are a class of immune cells important in the prognosis and treatment of several diseases,
including cancer. CD68 is the established clinical biomarker for pan-macrophage. Currently, there are no non-
invasive probes specific for human or mouse CD68. We propose to develop novel probes for human and
mouse CD68 for PET imaging of macrophages. This project involves phage display screening of a human Fab
library (Aim 1a); binding of resulting “hits” to CD68 proteins (Aim 1b) validating in CD68-positive macrophages
to select lead huFabs (Aim 1c); and evaluating the function of the resulting lead radiolabeled huFabs in
appropriate mice models (Aim 2). From this work, we will produce a PET imaging toolkit for imaging human
and mouse macrophages with high binding affinity, specificity, and pharmacokinetic properties suitable for
same-day imaging. Our long-term goal is to apply our novel PET probes to quantify macrophage density in vivo
in different diseases in humans and mice. Specifically, we envision that co-clinical trials will employ these
probes for imaging human subjects and corresponding mice models of disease to monitor response to
treatments that modulate macrophage activity.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10461963
- **Project number:** 5R01EB031821-02
- **Recipient organization:** YALE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Bernadette Marquez-Nostra
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $677,520
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-08-15 → 2023-01-20

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10461963

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10461963, Development of novel human Fab probes for PET imaging of macrophages (5R01EB031821-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10461963. Licensed CC0.

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