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Nuclear medicine technologists at the VA Biomolecular Imaging Center in the Harry S. Truman Memorial Veterans’ Hospital use a Siemens Micro-SPECT/CT unit to generate three-dimensional CT scans of cancerous tumors.
Inside the main floor of the Harry S. Truman Memorial Veterans’ Hospital on a typical afternoon, there’s a constant flow of patients — military veterans of all ages — and their families. Some are entering the hospital, and some are leaving after brief or extended stays. Hospital staff members, most wearing white coats, are part of the ebb and flow.
Personal connections are a constant on the main floor. Patients and spouses hold hands. Clinicians shake hands with patients or hug them hello or goodbye.
Just one floor below, the scene is quite different. Staff members wear face shields and gloves. Rooms are sealed and have hazard signs mounted on their doors. The hallways are sterile and quiet. Patients are nowhere to be seen.
This is the Truman VA hospital’s research area, more than 30,000 square feet of space devoted to research in nearly every medical discipline from allergies to urology, except pediatrics. The VA research area has approximately 200 staff members, and there are between 40 and 50 ongoing investigations at any one time.
Research varies from basic laboratory to clinical, and research investigators and clinicians from the VA hospital work side by side with colleagues from as many as 11 departments and 19 academic units at the University of Missouri. A tunnel under Hospital Drive provides easy access to the research area from University Hospital.
Research investigators use a series of components to create radiopharmaceuticals from radioactive isotopes.
Less than a dozen vertical feet separate the basement from the main floor of the VA hospital, but their environments are worlds apart. They do, however, share a common goal: to make lives better for America’s veterans.
Occupying 9,000 square feet of the VA research area is the Biomolecular Imaging Center, a vital radiopharmaceutical resource for VA and MU research investigators in their efforts to detect and treat cancerous tumors as early in development as possible.
The center is home to three powerful imaging devices. The Micro-MRI imaging and spectroscopy system features a 7 Tesla, 210 mm horizontal bore that can produce high-resolution anatomical and functional images and collect spectroscopic data from tumors in the brain, heart and other organs. The Micro-PET unit allows researchers to track and monitor positron-emitting probes in an in vivo (within a living organism) system. With the Micro-SPECT/CT unit, researchers are able to obtain anatomical data from three-dimensional X-ray computed tomographs and combine that with SPECT data to accurately identify and localize isotopic drugs as they make their way through a live organism.
A heavily sealed chamber allows research investigators to work safely with radioactive materials.
Located less than a mile away from the center is the MU Research Reactor, a 10-megawatt nuclear reactor from which researchers can create a vast number of isotopic drugs for the detection and treatment of cancers. Some of these isotopes have half-lives so short that they must be transported to the VA hospital within minutes after creation.
“This is what makes this center so unique,” said center Director Dr. Timothy Hoffman, who also serves as a professor of internal medicine at the MU School of Medicine. “We can use isotopes that other research centers couldn’t possibly use because of their short half-lives. It would be like shipping ice cream made here to Seattle without refrigeration. It wouldn’t get there looking anything like ice cream.”
Hoffman said positron-emitting drugs that have been made and are undergoing phase 1 testing in the Biomolecular Imaging Center might be available for human clinical trials in the next 12 to 18 months. These drugs will be used for patients with melanoma or oral or colorectal cancers. “They could represent a whole new way to diagnose and treat malignant tumors that previously couldn’t be detected.”
VA research comes with a sizeable price tag, and the Missouri Foundation for Medical Research has stepped in since it was chartered in 1991, with funds from corporate and private donors to help fund VA research including the center’s continuing efforts.
The foundation’s mission is: “To acquire and administer funds to support and sustain the advancement of health care knowledge and discovery for the benefit of America’s veterans.”
This spring the foundation gave $258,000 to VA research investigators for major equipment purchases, awards for young investigators and bridge funds that allow the investigators to continue work while applying for other funding. Otherwise, Hoffman said, the center likely wouldn’t be able to afford the equipment upgrades that also were made possible by this donation.
In 2009 and 2010, the foundation provided more than $1.133 million in support for research and education at the VA hospital, with $435,198 of that going to VA research partner MU for purchase of lab services, research reactor time and to supplement staff salaries for Ph.D. candidates, post-doctoral staff and others.
“We are extremely proud of our funding efforts for VA research,” said foundation Executive Director Sharon Feltman. “In addition to the leading cancer research that’s being done for our veterans and the public, the VA research is also good for business in Columbia.” Last year VA research brought $5.5 million into the local economy.
Feltman urges area businesses to join the Missouri Foundation for Medical Research, either as donors or as members of its board of directors.
Board member Keith McLaughlin, senior vice president of The Bank of Missouri, said the foundation has given him new appreciation for the quality of health care and medical research that the VA hospital and MU provide. “We are so lucky to be living in an area where this level of care is all around us,” he said. “I am grateful for the opportunity to serve on the board, and I hope that other businesses here will step forward as well.”
Winning teams
Nuclear medicine technology students from the Harry S. Truman Memorial Veterans’ Hospital received national recognition in June for research projects they presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine in San Antonio. Kelsey L. Richmond and Nicole McLean won first place for presenting “Optimizing a F-18 NaF and FDG Cocktail as a Preclinical Cancer Screening Tool for Molecular Imaging.” Co-authors were Tammy L. Rold, Ashley F. Szczodroski, Thomas P. Dresser and Timothy J. Hoffman. Brieanne E. Weinhoff and Suzanne M. Shaffer received second place for presenting “Development of Site-directed Radiopharmaceuticals for Treatment of Prostate Cancer.” Co-authors were Stephanie R. Doll, Silvia S. Jurisson, Martin W. Brechbiel, Prasanta K. Nanda, Andrew B. Jackson and C. Jeffrey Smith.
