Cellular Imaging and Molecular Pathology

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The role of the Cellular Imaging and Molecular Pathology Core is to support investigators in the Program Project Grant by providing a set of dedicated molecular biological and state-of-the-art in vivo molecular imaging analyses. Together these comprise the necessary tools for effective assessment of disease states, the molecular basis of response to therapy both in patients and in animal models and the analysis of the in vivo fate of cellular populations. The services provided by this Core are those that extend beyond routine preclinical studies and standard clinical care. This Core provides molecular testing for projects that monitor treatment outcomes, detect early disease recurrence and minimal disease states. Rapid and quantitative assessment of experimental therapies is necessary for accelerated and accurate analyses of potential efficacy. We have developed molecular imaging tools for such analyses in living animal models and these will be used to study and optimize the therapies proposed in this program. An established Small Animal Imaging Core Resource at Stanford provides the instrumentation and expertise for these investigations and will continue to refine the methods for specific programmatic applications and move toward clinical imaging strategies. In vivo molecular imaging will be used to direct the ex vivo assays for more meaningful comprehensive analyses. In vivo imaging strategies utilizing novel bioluminescent markers which allow for the quantitative, noninvasive detection of disease burden and tracking of cellular populations will be used in Projects 3, 4, 5, 7 and 8. Molecular testing for disease specific chromosomal translocations or transcription products will be performed for Projects 1, 2 and 8 on leukemia and lymphoma specimens. Quantitative assessment of minimal residual disease will be performed using TaqMan chemistry for a robust assessment of disease response and potential recurrence on clinical specimens. The centralized performance of the molecular procedures by this Core will avoid duplication of efforts in the program and ensure timely, efficient and consistently high quality results. This combination of in vivo and ex vivo analyses strengthens the studies by providing more data and directed evaluation of clinical and preclinical specimens in a centralized core.