Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) Imaging Agent (SJ-23-0008)

St. Jude Reference #SJ-23-0008

Description

Oxidative stress plays a significant role in the progression of various diseases, including cancer, neurodegeneration, chronic inflammation, and diabetes. Antioxidants have long been investigated as an effective therapeutic intervention strategy in many Central Nervous System (CNS) diseases, including TBI, ALS, depression, bipolar disorder, addiction, and stroke. Unfortunately, the inability to quantify drug delivery or oxidative stress within the CNS in real-time has generally yielded disappointing clinical trial outcomes of antioxidant strategies.

To address this issue researchers at St. Jude have developed a technology to noninvasively quantify oxidative stress in the body, which will not only revolutionize antioxidant-targeted drug development, but also enable mechanism-based research on the interplay of oxidative stress and disease and allow a clinician to diagnose patients that would benefit from antioxidant therapy.

[18F]Fluoroedaravone ([18F]FEDV) is a novel small molecule labeled with a radioactive element, fluorine-18, which can be detected using PET. Using [18F]FEDV, novel agents can be generated to detect molecular signatures of disease with high specificity and sensitivity. [18F]FEDV can non-invasively quantify oxidative stress in the central nervous system a. [18F]FEDV can be used to longitudinally study the role of oxidative stress in disease pathology and identify therapeutic windows, which allow therapeutic intervention with a chemically-identical nonradioactive molecule, [19F]FEDV.

The recent approval of Radicava® for ALS provides a unique opportunity, given the chemical homology between Radicava® and [18F]FEDV. As [18F]FEDV PET is used to study oxidative stress in different disease pathologies, these studies will enumerate therapeutic windows that may be useful for Radicava® therapeutic intervention.

The most significant advantage is that our technology can be used as an oxidative stress theranostic. Two chemically identical molecules, [18F]FEDV and [19F]FEDV can be used for diagnosing oxidative stress pathology in disease and treating oxidative stress pathology in disease, respectively.

While there are products for imaging oxidative stress with PET, these agents are severely limited by low- to no blood-brain-barrier permeability and/or very limited oxidative stress reactivity. Specific examples and further explanation available if interested.

Keywords

Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS), Imaging Agent, oxidative stress, cancer, neurodegeneration, chronic inflammation, and diabetes, antioxidant, Central Nervous System (CNS) diseases, TBI, ALS, depression, bipolar disorder, addiction, stroke, [18F]Fluoroedaravone ([18F]FEDV), Positron Emission Tomography (PET), [19F]FEDV, theranostic (therapeutic + diagnostic tool), Radicava®, blood-brain-barrier permeability.

Granted patents or published applications

WO Pending Patent Published as PCT/US24/40855.

Related scientific references

Fluoroedaravone: a Positron Emission Tomography Probe for Imaging Oxidative Stress in the Central Nervous System. (upcoming)

Licensing opportunities

We are seeking partners to develop this technology.

Contact the Office of Technology Licensing (Phone: 901-595-2342, Fax: 901-595-3148) for more information.