Graduates

We warmly congratulate Taraneh Sadat Zavvar on completing her PhD studies as the first graduate in the IGDT-ART program
We congratulate Taraneh Zavvar, who successfully defended her dissertation on 4 November 2025. Her doctoral thesis, entitled “Novel Receptor-Specific Targeting in Patients with Advanced Neuroendocrine Tumours”, deals with the development and clinical translation of a new radiolabelled ligand for therapeutic application in peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT). In her doctoral thesis, Taraneh was able to select [¹⁷⁷Lu]Lu-DOTA-MGS5 for clinical translation from a pool of various minigastrin analogues with specific binding to the cholecystokinin-2 receptor. In addition to the comprehensive characterisation of the ¹⁷⁷Lu-labelled peptide in preclinical studies, with the development of a standardised pharmaceutical formulation Taraneh made a significant contribution in bringing the new radiopharmaceutical closer to clinical application. In a collaboration between the Medical University of Innsbruck and the industry partner Evergreen Theragnostics in the USA, this new personalised therapy is currently being investigated in a first clinical trial in patients with small cell lung cancer. Taraneh conducted her research in the Radiopharmaceutical Laboratory of the Department of Nuclear Medicine, with Priv.-Doz. Dr. Elisabeth von Guggenberg as her supervisor and Priv.-Doz. Dr. Leonhard Gruber as her co-supervisor. The project was funded by the Medical University as part of the PhD programme “IGDT – integrating multimodal strategies for clinical research” (FWF DOC 110 doc.funds; grant DOI 10.55776/DOC110). Tareneh will continue to work as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Nuclear Medicine and contribute her expertise to the FWF project P34732 “Innovative radiolabelling strategies for CCK2R targeting”. The IGDT Faculty is delighted to congratulate Taraneh on completing her PhD studies!