Development of chelators and radiotracers for nuclear medicine: Design, synthesis, radiochemistry, and pre-clinical evaluation of radiotracers for targeted molecular imaging, radiotherapy, and drug development.

The Paterson group’s research focuses on developing methods to attach radioactive metal ions to peptides and proteins for use in diagnostic imaging and radiotherapy. 


The research program utilises the radionuclides Cu-64, Ga-68, Zr-89, Tc-99m and In-111 for diagnostic imaging. We also pursue potential radiotherapeutic applications with beta-emitting radionuclides Lu-177 and Re-188 and alpha-emitting radionuclides Pb-212, Ac-225 and Ra-223.

The group uses synthetic organic and inorganic chemistry to generate new coordination complexes. We develop the radiochemistry and the bioconjugation procedures to produce constructs for pre-clinical trials imaging disease using positron emission tomography (PET) and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and targeted radiotherapy of tumours.

Researcher biography

Keywords: Radiochemistry, molecular imaging, bioinorganic chemistry, bioconjugation chemistry, theranostics

Associate Professor Brett Paterson is Head of Radiochemistry at The Centre for Advanced Imaging. He is a synthetic inorganic/organic chemist with extensive experience in the design, synthesis and evaluation of radiotracers/radiopharmaceuticals for therapy and imaging applications.