The Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers is pleased to congratulate Christina Katsiva a Cohen Award recipient on the successfully completion of her PhD. A short report may be viewed below.
End of PhD report – Christina Katsiva
University: University College London
Date of PhD thesis defence: 25/09/2025
PhD thesis title: The Use of PET/CT for the Tracking of Positron Labelled Cell Therapies to
Investigate Cell Distribution and Therapeutic Efficacy in the Diseased Lung
PhD thesis description and impact:
Cell therapies are developed for a vast range of pathologies and clinical trials are conducted to
assess the safety and therapeutic efficacy of prospective cell treatments. Despite the need to
understand the in vivo distribution of a cell treatment, in vivo cell tracking by imaging is rarely
utilised during clinical trials to understand the biodistribution of cells in patients, due to the lack
of safe and easily clinically applicable methods of cell tracking.
In vivo cell tracking by PET/CT imaging using 89Zr is a promising method that could be
applied in patients, to understand the in vivo distribution of a cell treatment. In this PhD thesis, a
clinically translatable direct radiolabelling method using [89Zr]Zr-oxine was developed for a
clinical GMP mesenchymal stem cell therapy for lung cancer. The thesis provides a clinically
translatable radiolabelling method that can be applied as part of a clinical trial to offer
information on therapeutic cell distribution, therapeutic cell homing to tumours, and therapeutic
efficacy of stem cell treatments, and has identified optimal imaging protocol parameters that can
be used in patient studies.
Current role of the student:
Christina has started a position as a Research Fellow at University College London at the Centre
for Advanced Biomedical Imaging. She is utilising Nuclear Imaging to understand the role and
function of a brain structure called the Choroid Plexus in neurodegenerative diseases and in this
way develop treatments for patients in need.
University: University College London
Date of PhD thesis defence: 25/09/2025
PhD thesis title: The Use of PET/CT for the Tracking of Positron Labelled Cell Therapies to
Investigate Cell Distribution and Therapeutic Efficacy in the Diseased Lung
PhD thesis description and impact:
Cell therapies are developed for a vast range of pathologies and clinical trials are conducted to
assess the safety and therapeutic efficacy of prospective cell treatments. Despite the need to
understand the in vivo distribution of a cell treatment, in vivo cell tracking by imaging is rarely
utilised during clinical trials to understand the biodistribution of cells in patients, due to the lack
of safe and easily clinically applicable methods of cell tracking.
In vivo cell tracking by PET/CT imaging using 89Zr is a promising method that could be
applied in patients, to understand the in vivo distribution of a cell treatment. In this PhD thesis, a
clinically translatable direct radiolabelling method using [89Zr]Zr-oxine was developed for a
clinical GMP mesenchymal stem cell therapy for lung cancer. The thesis provides a clinically
translatable radiolabelling method that can be applied as part of a clinical trial to offer
information on therapeutic cell distribution, therapeutic cell homing to tumours, and therapeutic
efficacy of stem cell treatments, and has identified optimal imaging protocol parameters that can
be used in patient studies.
Current role of the student:
Christina has started a position as a Research Fellow at University College London at the Centre
for Advanced Biomedical Imaging. She is utilising Nuclear Imaging to understand the role and
function of a brain structure called the Choroid Plexus in neurodegenerative diseases and in this
way develop treatments for patients in need.