Sebastian Olma

Cerenkov radiation imaging as a method for quantitative measurements of beta particles in a microfluidic chip

This work proposes a novel method for quantitative imaging of radioactivity on microfluidic chips by using visible light emission from Čerenkov radiation. Čerenkov radiation is generated when charged particles travel through an optically transparent material with a velocity greater than that of light in that material. It has been observed at UCLA that microfluidic chips used for 18F-related radio-synthesis studies have shown unidentified visible light emissions. In this study, the origin of the light was investigated and its feasibility as a quantitative imaging source was tested.

Microfluidic-based 18F-labeling of biomolecules for immuno-positron emission tomography.

Methods for tagging biomolecules with fluorine 18 as immuno–positron emission tomography (immunoPET) tracers require tedious optimization of radiolabeling conditions and can consume large amounts of scarce biomolecules. We describe an improved method using a digital microfluidic droplet generation (DMDG) chip, which provides computer-controlled metering and mixing of 18F tag, biomolecule, and buffer in defined ratios, allowing rapid scouting of reaction conditions in nanoliter volumes. The identified optimized conditions were then translated to bench-scale 18F labeling of a cancer-specific engineered antibody fragments, enabling microPET imaging of tumors in xenografted mice at 0.5 to 4 hours postinjection.

Čerenkov radiation imaging as a method for quantitative measurements of beta particles in a microfluidic chip

This work proposes a novel method for quantitative imaging of radioactivity on microfluidic chips by using visible light emission from Cerenkov radiation. Cerenkov radiation is generated when charged particles travel through an optically transparent material with a velocity greater than that of light in that material. It has been observed at UCLA that microfluidic chips used for 18F-related radio-synthesis studies have shown unidentified visible light emissions. In this study, the origin of the light was investigated and its feasibility as a quantitative imaging source was tested.