Our mission is to perform basic, translational and applied clinical PET research across all specialties including oncology, neurology/psychiatry, and cardiology. We welcome work with external collaborators, including industry. We aim to obtain the best possible quality and reliability for all studies we perform.

Clinical PET-CT and PET-MR Scanning

The Centre is the first in the UK to have a purpose designed scanning suite, refurbished in 2013, with two state-of-the-art PET-CT scanners and a simultaneous PET-MR scanner, the second of its kind in the UK. We have a third PET-CT scanner in the Cancer Centre at Guy's. Currently over 8000 patients a year are scanned, the vast majority of these being whole body FDG oncology studies. Medical staff in the centre are experts in the field having produced many of the standards and guidelines for the use of PET that have been endorsed/adopted by the professional societies including The Royal College of Radiologists and bodies such as NICE.

Teaching and Training

The Centre runs regular training courses for physicians, radiologists, radiographers and scientists and, as part of the Medical School, contributes to undergraduate and postgraduate (MSc and PhD) teaching.

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Research

The Centre is active in many areas of research, including the development and evaluation of new tracers, the development and assessment of new clinical PET indications, coordination of national and international cancer trials using PET-CT imaging and new PET technology and data analysis methods. Medical and scientific staff make regular contributions at major international conferences and to leading journals on imaging related topics.

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Scanning and Tracer Production Facilities

Clinical and research scanning is carried out on two GE Discovery 710 PET-CT scanners, one Siemens Biograph mCT Flow PET-CT scanner and one Siemens Biograph mMR PET-MR scanner. Additional equipment includes various well counters and online sampling for complex quantitative dynamic studies, motion tracking devices, radiotherapy lasers and a comprehensive computer network for reporting, data analysis and archiving.

We also have two state-of-the-art radiochemistry facilities, the Positron Emitting Radiopharmaceutical Laboratory (PERL) and the Cyclotron and Radiochemistry Laboratory (CARL). In these facilities we produce a range of clinical tracers to GMP standards, which are used to scan patients in our scanning suites, and pursue a wide-ranging research programme to develop new PET tracers.