Our hypothesis is that compounds and drugs that bind to pathogen-specific proteins will be concentrated in infected tissues and enable the visualization of pathogens in vivo, thereby identifying and improving treatment of patients with diseases such as tuberculosis.  This project, which is being performed in collaboration with Dr. Joanna Fowler’s group at Brookhaven National Lab, involves introducing short-lived isotopes into antibacterial compounds and imaging the distribution of these compounds in vivo using positron emission tomography (PET).  Currently we have labeled three front-line tuberculosis drugs, rifampicin, isoniazid and pyrazinamide, with the PET isotope carbon-11, and imaged the distribution of these drugs in healthy baboons.  These studies are now being extended to non-human primates infected with M. tuberculosis.  The development of a method for directly imaging the M. tuberculosis pathogen in humans will have a profound effect on tuberculosis diagnosis and the detection of latent tuberculosis populations.