Centre for Cooperative Research in Biomaterials
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Address:
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Paseo Miramon 182, San Sebastián, PO: 20014 (Spain)
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Animal facilities
Chemistry and Material Sciences
The platform is designed to perform in vivo studies from various imaging modalities in SPECT and CT. The combination of these potent and noninvasive imaging techniques facilitates performing multimodal approaches to biological, physiological and medical problems, obtaining images with rich functional and anatomical information. It is equipped with small animal dedicated: • Hybrid PET-CT (eXplore Vista-CT) • SPECT-CT (eXplore speCZT-CT120) • PET-SPECT-CT trimodal system (β, γ and X-CUBES, MOLECUBES) • Optical imaging system (Kodak In- Vivo Imaging System Fx Pro) • Autoradiography system for end point-high resolution nuclear imaging
The Radiochemistry platform is equipped with: • IBA Cyclone 18/9 cyclotron with targets for the routine production of several positron emitters or direct activation of nanomaterials. • 6 hot cells which house automaticremote controlled synthesis modules • A shielded laminar flow cabinet • State of the art quality control equipment, including radio-HPLC, radio-GC, radio-MS, radio-TLC and a multichannel energy analyzer. • A fully equipped laboratory for radioactive metabolite analysis in blood and tissue samples and a cell culture lab for in vitro studies with radiolabeled ligands. The versatility of the instruments allows the synthesis of a wide range of well-known PET and SPECT radiotracers, as well as the design of new labeled structures to undertake pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies.
It provides users with the assessment and necessary equipment (preparations and microsurgery rooms) to carry out research on laboratory animals (rodents). We also procure care and ensure the welfare of the animals, ensuring all legal and ethical standards concerning the use of animals for research. The Animal Unit Platform is an AAALAC accredited facility since 2015 and accreditation has been renewed in 2018.
The Image Analytics service takes care of processing all the outcoming multimodal images obtained within the Molecular Imaging Unit (PET, SPECT, CT, MRI and Optical Imaging). Working on different operating systems, we carry out co-registration, segmentation, and quantification of multimodal images. Moreover, we also work with Matlab, FSL and IDL in the development of analysis and processing algorithms. The combination of all multimodal imaging techniques confined in the Imaging Unit with a reliable image analysis process offers a complete and powerful Imaging facility to researchers.
The Magnetic Resonance Imaging(MRI) platform is equipped with: • MRI 11.7T/16 cm (117/16 USR)operating at proton resonance frequency of 500 MHz • MRI 7T/30 cm (70/30 USR) operating at proton resonance frequency of 300 MHz • Dedicated RF-coils of different sizes optimized for in vivo and ex vivo MR imaging on rat and mouse brain, body or heart • Heteronuclear coils allowing 13C, 19F and 31P acquisitions • MRI-compatible physiological monitoring systems