Potential and challenges of Positron Emission Tomography beyond conventional preclinical and clinical imaging

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is a non-invasive, highly sensitive functional imaging modality, firmly established in clinical practice for the diagnosis and assessment of therapeutic efficacy in oncological and neurological disorders. Recent advances in digital image processing, sensor technology, and imaging algorithms have enabled this technique to achieve sub-millimetric spatial resolution and a high degree of compactness, thereby making its application to the investigation of biological systems smaller than humans both feasible and scientifically meaningful. In this review, we detail the substantial impact of PET on emerging applications in biomedicine, food security, and agriculture. We focus specifically on non-conventional implementations of PET, including small-animal imaging in species beyond traditional murine models, and imaging of crops. The discussed translational pathways of PET - from bench to bedside and from-lab-to-field - impose stringent technological requirements on system design and performance, thereby driving further innovation in PET detector technologies and associated electronics.