Medizinische Universität Wien
Spitalgasse 23
A-1090 Vienna

Austria

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Project Leader

Prof. Dr. Markus Müller Phone: +43-(0)1-40400-2981  Fax: +43-(0)1-40400-2998  Contact

Project Staff

Doz. Dr. Oliver Langer Project co-leader, radiochemistry and metabolite analysis  Phone: +43-(0)1-40400-2981  Fax: +43-(0)1-40400-2998  Contact

Dr. Martin Bauer Patient recruitment and PET data analysis  Contact

Mr. Aiman Abrahim PhD student, radiochemistry and metabolite analysis  Contact

Prof. Rudolf Karch PET data modelling (institute of Biosimulation and Bioinformatics)  Contact

Doz. Dr. Ekatarina Pataraia Patient care and recruitment  Contact

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Christoph Baumgartner Patient care and recruitment  Contact

Institute Presentation

Medizinische Universität Wien (MUW) is one of the largest Medical Universities in Europe and, together with the General Hospital of Vienna, forms Austria’s largest medical research facility. It provides a scientific work environment for about 3000 scientists and 2000 support and administrative personnel in all major medical and many basic research fields. MUW is involved in delivering patient care to about 90000 patients in the ward part of the General Hospital of Vienna and to approximately 400.000 outpatients p.a.. At MUW, the Department of Clinical Pharmacology and Nuclear Medicine have been successfully co-operating in performing clinical studies for several years. The Department of Clinical Pharmacology has long-standing expertise in conducting ICH-GCP compliant phase I-IV clinical studies, both in academic and contract research. The Department of Nuclear Medicine operates a PET centre, which is equipped with a cyclotron, radiochemistry facilities and a GE Advance PET scanner. The Department of Clinical Pharmacology has been closely cooperating over the years with the Department of Neurology in the field of assessing the function of cerebral multidrug transporters with PET. The Department of Neurology currently provides outpatient care to about 2500 adults with a variety of epileptic disorders. Patients with drug resistant forms of epilepsies undergo video-EEG-monitoring (approximately 200 patients/year), 30-50 patients a year undergo surgical treatment. MUW has the largest clinical genetic department in Austria with particular interest in the study of drug-resistance in epilepsy (Pub 1,3). They were the first to partially replicate an important association study of an ABCB1 gene haplotype with pharmacoresistance in temporal lobe epilepsy (Pub 1). MUW were the first to correlate cerebral [11C]verapamil uptake with functional haplotypes in the drug transporter gene ABCB1 (Pub 2) and apply (R)-[11C]verapamil PET to patients with epilepsy (Pub 4 and 5).

Selected references

1. Zimprich F, Sunder-Plassmann R, Stogmann E, Gleiss A, Dal-Bianco A, Zimprich A, Plumer S, Baumgartner C, Mannhalter C. Association of an ABCB1 gene haplotype with pharmacoresistance in temporal lobe epilepsy. Neurology 2004;63: 1087-9.
2. Brunner M, Langer O, Sunder-Plassmann R, Dobrozemsky G, Müller U, Wadsak W, Krcal A, Karch R, Mannhalter C, Dudczak R, Kletter K, Steiner I, Baumgartner C, Müller M. Influence of functional haplotypes in the drug transporter gene ABCB1 on central nervous system drug distribution in humans. Clin Pharmacol Ther 2005; 78:182-90.
3. Marchi N, Guiso G, Rizzi M, Pirker S, Novak K, Czech T, Baumgartner C, Janigro D, Caccia S, Vezzani A. A  pilot study on brain-to-plasma partition of 10,11-dyhydro-10-hydroxy-5H-dibenzo(b,f)azepine-5-carboxamide and MDR1 brain expression in epilepsy patients not responding to oxcarbazepine. Epilepsia 2005;46:1613-9.
4. Langer O, Bauer M, Hammers A, Karch R, Pataraia E, Koepp MJ, Abrahim A, Luurtsema G, Brunner M, Sunder-Plassmann R, Zimprich F, Joukhadar C, Gentzsch S, Dudczak R, Kletter K, Müller M, Baumgartner C. Pharmacoresistance in epilepsy: a pilot PET study with the P-glycoprotein substrate R-[11C]verapamil. Epilepsia 2007;48(9):1774-84.
5. Abrahim A, Luurtsema G, Bauer M, Karch R, Pataraia E, Joukhadar C, Kletter K, Lammertsma AA, Baumgartner C, Müller M, Langer O. Peripheral metabolism of (R)-[11C]verapamil in epilepsy patients. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 2008; 35(1):116-23.