Molecular imaging of biological processes from microPET in mice to PET in patients

This article focuses on bringing together mice to patients with microPET to PET and molecular imaging probes and drugs for molecular diagnostics and molecular therapeutics. In the latter there is a common disease target in which near massless amounts of a molecular imaging probe is used to image the presence and function of the target and then to use the same molecule, or analogs of it, in mass amounts to modify the function of the target therapeutically. The biological world has gone molecular from the revolutionary paradigm shift from the genome, proteome and systems biology to molecular biology, molecular pharmacology, molecular therapeutics, molecular diagnostics, molecular medicine and molecular imaging. The heart of this movement is the molecular basis of instructions, communication, regulation and function of the cellular make up of the body. Classical nomenclature and descriptions of disease are giving way to molecular descriptions of disease to define the diagnostic and disease information required to select and evaluate molecular therapies. As the basis of disease and its therapeutic management shifts to the molecular basis of the biology of disease, imaging diagnostics must shift to this basis also. Many advances in various molecular and anatomical techniques are occurring to meet this challenge from research to clinical practice.