Ongoing Projects

CONTRAST AGENTS

Since the late 1980s, Gadolinium based contrast agents (GBCA) are used for enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examinations. During this period, several million doses have been applied worldwide and have been tolerated very well by most patients. However, it became evident that gadolinium accumulates anywhere in the organism after (multiple) administrations of GBCA. Especially in patients with severe renal insufficiency, a rare systemic disease called nephrogenic systemic fibrosis (NSF) is associated with deposits of gadolinium in various tissues and organs. Moreover, during the past years, it became evident that gadolinium accumulates within the brain, too.

The chemical form of the gadolinium deposits and the exact location e.g. intra or extracellular is currently unknown (i.e. as intact chelate and/or as gadolinium bound to molecules within the organism). One of the key questions, namely, the interaction of GBCA on a cellular level, has only been studied occasionally, and with inconsistent results.

Therefore, our current focus is on the GBCA-cell interaction, on the one hand in general and on the other hand in particular on white blood cells and the components of the blood brain

Cisplatin Resistance in Lung Cancer and ways to circumvent it

Lung cancer is the most lethal malignant tumor in humans. Among the various therapies used, platinum-based combination chemotherapy dominates in advanced stages of this disease. However, the resistance to platinum(II) compounds, typically cisplatin, limits the therapeutic efficiency of the treatment. Primal resistance exists in chemotherapeutically naive patients and therapeutically induced cisplatin resistance develops regularly under platinum-based combination chemotherapy. The latter is considered to be an iatrogenic variety of drug resistance.

Two ways to circumvent cisplatin resistance exist, namely, to understand the mechanism of resistance development or to develop alternative drugs. Both are the focus of our research, the latter in close collaboration with the department of chemistry biochemistry and pharmacy.