Research interests
My research focuses on understanding the pharmacokinetic properties of radiotracers to accelerate and improve drug development in neuroscience and cancer, from bench to bedside, with a particular focus on the Blood–Brain Barrier (BBB).
Building on this background, my current work centers on whole-body tracer imaging of the organ axes linking lymphoid organs and disease sites under chronic mental stress:
- We have established several mouse stress models to investigate how chronic stress contributes to poor immune surveillance, patient outcome, prognosis, and immunotherapy response.
- Within an international consortium (EPILUCAFS), we are investigating epigenetic drivers of cancer-associated fibroblasts in chronic stress and immunosuppression in lung cancer over the next three years.
- We perform image-based metabolic phenotyping of KRAS-driven lung cancer mouse models using positron emission tomography (PET).
- To overcome the limited spatial resolution of PET, we established RadioFlow, a radioactive cell-sorting technique, to understand immune cell metabolism and metabolite competition within the tumour microenvironment and lymphoid organs.
- Combining total-body PET with molecular biology techniques, we aim to identify new biomarkers and understand the mechanisms underlying chronic stress disorders and tissue microenvironments.
In 2023–2024 and again in 2025, I was a visiting scientist at the CRUK Scotland Institute (Glasgow, UK), affiliated with the University of Glasgow’s Molecular Imaging Group led by David Y. Lewis, to deepen my expertise in immune-metabolism and molecular techniques and to build international collaboration.
Techniques, methods & infrastructure
Radiotracer development & imaging
- Radiolabeling (PET, SPECT, Therapeutics)
- Preclinical imaging (µPET/µCT)
- Metabolic, cancer, and neuro imaging
- Imaging organ-axis / organ-crosstalk
Drug development & pharmacokinetics
- In vitro ADME techniques: lipophilicity, permeability, plasma protein binding, distribution, and metabolism
- Cell culture: co-culture models, real-time kinetic assays, binding studies
- Autoradiography and ex vivo/in vitro metabolism and biodistribution studies
- In vivo radio-metabolite analysis and plasma protein binding for kinetic modeling (human and animal studies)
In vivo models & molecular biology
- Stress mouse models
- RadioFlow
- Molecular biology techniques (wetlab)
Grants
Chronic stress and immunosuppression in lung cancer: focus on epigenetic drivers in cancer-associated fibroblasts (EPILUCAFS) (2024) Funding: EU, TRANSCAN-3 Role: Principal Investigator
Join the lab
We welcome inquiries from motivated Master’s students, PhD candidates, and postdoctoral researchers interested in radiotracer development, PET/SPECT imaging, or the biology of chronic stress in cancer. If our research resonates with your interests, get in touch to discuss opportunities.
Contact
Dr.rer.nat. Chrysoula Vraka, MSc Principal Investigator (PI), Vraka Lab Research Associate (Postdoc), Department of Biomedical Imaging and Image-guided Therapy (Clinical Division of Nuclear Medicine) Core team member, Experimental Nuclear Medicine (Head: Prof. Cécile Philippe)
Medical University of Vienna (MUW) — Spitalgasse 23, 1090 Wien, Österreich
T: +43 1 40400 58720 E: chrysoula.vraka@meduniwien.ac.at LinkedIn: chrysoula-vraka-452235173