In Vivo Fluorescence and Bioluminescence Imager with CT

项目总结

PROJECT SUMMARY Bioluminescent and fluorescent in vivo imaging on whole animal has become an increasingly important and necessary tool for biomedical researchers in many fields including cancer, neurobiology, infectious diseases and inflammation. In vivo imaging facilitates a better understanding of disease pathology, disease monitoring, and drug development. Perkin Elmer’s IVIS SpectrumCT measures bioluminescence, fluorescence, 2D and 3D imaging capabilities and included an integrated low-dose and ultra-fast CT imaging. Many of the research projects described in this application are translational in nature and will lead to new therapeutics or better understanding of disease states. Our current system purchased in 2005 and updated in 2012 and has become unreliable leading to significant downtime of the instrument. Many of our investigator who conduct longitudinal mice experiments have lost time, money, data and effort due to unexpected unavailability of our current IVIS Xenogen. We have nearly 55 users of the existing system from schools within the University of Maryland Baltimore (UMB) and various centers of excellence. We have identified a group of 20 NIH-funded investigators with 36 NIH and other federal grants whose individual projects would be directly and substantially benefitted by having continued access to a reliable, state-of-the-art instrument to conduct bioluminescence and fluorescence imaging in whole animals. Significant commitment by the institution towards installation and sustained long-term operations has been made in order obtain the state-of-the- art bioluminescence/fluorescence system with a built-in CT system for 3D tomography applications. The management and operational structure for this instrument is already in place with an outstanding technical team that strives to provide excellent service to the end users.