A new scan for measuring immune cells in the heart

Imaging human cardiovascular macrophages using 64Cu-Macrin positron emission tomography

Immunocardiology is an area of research looking at immune cells in the heart. A group of immune cells called macrophages are thought to be particularly important, but there is currently no method for non-invasively measuring these cells in the live human heart. Dr Andrew Lewis is an expert in developing new scanning technologies. He has designed a probe that labels macrophages so that they can be visualised and measured in the heart. To develop it further, he now needs to test it in a clinical study. This Travel Fellowship will allow him to spend time in the world’s leading laboratory for immunocardiology – the Nahrendorf laboratory at Harvard University, USA – to develop the method further and test it for the first time in people. There, he will lead a clinical study where the probe will either be given to a group of patients who have just had a heart attack, or to another group who have not and are instead undergoing preventative heart surgery. He will then take heart scans of both groups to visualise the macrophages of the heart and to understand how these cells might be contributing to injury following heart attack. After spending time in the Nahrendorf laboratory, Dr Lewis will return to Oxford to further develop this experimental technique in the UK. This technique has the potential to improve our understanding of how macrophages influence muscle damage following heart attack.