Unnatural amino acids offer new hope for accurate bacterial infection PET imaging in prosthetic joint infection

Excerpt

Bacterial infections remain a significant cause of morbidity and mortality. Alone, they are responsible for millions of deaths per year, and with the continuing emergence of antibiotic resistant superbugs, the problem remains a serious threat to human health and well-being. As such, diagnostic procedures that allow accurate diagnosis of a bacterial infection as early as possible are critically important in the eternal battle between humans and microbes. Despite this need, existing methods (e.g., magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, ⁶⁷Ga-citrate single photon emission computed tomography, ¹⁸F-fludeoxyglucose ([ ¹⁸F]FDG) positron emission tomography (PET)) come up short, particularly if early in an infection’s incubation period. White blood cell imaging is an alternative approach, but it is laborious to prepare ¹¹¹In-labeled WBCs and the procedure is operationally challenging. …