Brief Description
The requirement to study cancer in its native environment has encouraged the development of imaging technologies that can non-invasively and quantitatively interrogate both primary and metastatic disease. Since its inception in 2002, the VUIIS and colleagues have been dedicated to developing and applying novel imaging strategies to studying the tumor microenvironment. These advances span the range of the common imaging modalities, including ultrasound, MRI, optical imaging, x-ray, CT, and PET.
Since cancer is such a complex phenomenon, no single imaging modality can answer all questions of interest. This realization has led us to adopt a multi-parametric and multi-modality approach to using imaging for studies of tumor biology, tumor growth and treatment response. By combining the strengths from multiple imaging modalities, it is possible to develop a more comprehensive characterization of the tumor environment and to do so non-invasively. Furthermore, we are working to link all imaging modalities through quantitative cross-modality registration, as well as making efforts to co-register imaging data to gold standard metrics such as proteomic and histological cross-sections. The combination of several imaging modalities has led to us study "Imaging Across Scales," whereby quantitative information from the molecular, functional, and physiological scales are synthesized.
While there is certainly significant overlap between modalities and one often informs the other, we frequently think in terms of pre-clinical and clinical cancer imaging paradigms. Towards that end, we enumerate the basic and clinical science goals of the VUIIS Cancer Imaging group. The basic science goals involve development, implementation, and validation of new imaging techniques, whereas the clinical science goals comprise the application of the most promising pre-clinical techniques in a human population.
VUIIS Basic Science Goals in Cancer Imaging
- Characterizing relevant tumor cell surface receptor expression and extracellular proteins
- Mapping the tumor vascular architecture at high resolution in 3D
- Development of novel contrast mechanisms to visualize cancer-relevant pathophysiology
- Measurements of tumor vasculature and angiogenesis, and effects of anti-angiogenic treatments
- Development of novel, multi-modality contrast agents targeted to cancer cells
VUIIS Clinical Science Goals in Cancer Imaging
- Improved accuracy in diagnosis and staging
- Quantitative guiding of treatment
- Monitoring treatment efficacy
Current Projects
Pre-Clinical Projects
Clinical Projects
Cancer Imaging Group
Active researchers in the VUIIS working on projects related to cancer imaging have formed the Cancer Imaging Group. If you are on-campus, you can find more information regarding the CIG meetings and happenings by going to the Cancer Imaging Group site.
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Cancer Imaging |