Affilogic is developing Nanofitins directed against cancer biomarkers in conjugation with quickly decaying radio-isotopes. Due to the small size of the Nanofitins, their plasmatic half-life is short so we obtain a high contrast in PET imaging only 2 hours after injection in mice. This is an advantage of Nanofitins for imaging / radiotherapy applications as the limited recirculation of the radioactive agent in blood limits the potential toxicity as well, and enables a simple handling of radioactive waste. The high stability of the scaffold and the absence of cysteine allows easy regio-selective conjugation. The Nanofitins can also be considered as a companion diagnostic.

Anti-EGF-R Nanofitins conjugated to Fluorin-18 have been assessed as new molecular imaging agents for diagnosis of over-EGFR expressing tumour in partnership with the University of Liège. This work was published in Bioconjugate Chemistry.

Affilogic is also involved in the DiaSyn project, whose overall objective is to develop a PET imaging tracer for highly specific detection and quantification of a Parkinson’s disease biomarker in the brain. Affilogic is collaborating with the University of Liège (Belgium), the University of Artois (France), UCB Biopharma (Belgium) and the Cajal Institute – Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC, Spain) under the framework of a EuroNanoMed programme.