Small Animal CT System

描述（由申请人提供）：本提案涉及一种新型小动物CT（Siemens Inveon），将与我们现有的小动物PET系统对接，形成小动物双模PET/CT系统，以支持华盛顿大学、Fred哈钦森癌症研究中心、儿童医院和区域医疗中心及其附属机构的基础和转化研究。该系统将扩展和增强我们的成像能力，为我们NIH支持的研究社区提供小动物CT和小动物PET/CT。在过去十年中，对疾病和伤害引起的痛苦进行基因组研究所发现的问题的规模和复杂性已经变得显而易见。随着基因组学、蛋白质组学、表观基因组学和其他组学研究的不断进步，临床前影像学作为一种研究工具已经发展出明确而有效的作用。临床前成像和PET/CT，特别是，提供了疾病进展和治疗反应的异质性的评价。此外，PET/CT成像允许在短时间和长时间尺度上重复定量测量，从而提高效率并减少使用动物模型的研究的持续时间和成本。华盛顿大学的小动物PET设施于2008年开放，最初由NCRR共享仪器赠款支持。该设施最初的重点和成功是在癌症研究。然而，小动物PET成像资源吸引了神经学，药理学，环境和森林科学以及血管成像的研究人员。该计划的成功表明需要在我们的机构提供小动物双模PET/CT（即不仅仅是PET）和独立的小动物CT，以支持我们NIH资助的研究人员的研究。本申请描述了小动物PET/CT和小动物CT在我们机构的许多研究项目中的计划使用。我们的小动物成像重点一直是癌症，神经病学和血管研究，增加一个“可停靠”的CT单元将扩大和增强我们的成像能力，以支持这项研究。该系统将支持我们正在建立的新的研究计划，研究人员正在进行超声冲击治疗碎石术，超声组织碎石术以及废用模型中骨形成和再吸收的影响。最初将由该资源支持的其他项目包括缺氧，脂解，肿瘤细胞增殖的机制研究;肿瘤对治疗和治疗优化的反应;颈动脉斑块表征;鸟类脑映射研究;和放射性示踪剂开发。我们将获得的仪器将能够作为标本和离体microCT系统运行，并为我们的小动物PET系统提供额外的CT功能，以提供更好的解剖定位和更准确的衰减校正功能，以改善小动物疾病模型所需的生物特异性放射性药物的组织定量。因此，获得这种最先进的小动物CT系统将为我们高度积极和杰出的研究人员团队的转化研究目标做出重大贡献。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal is for a new small animal CT (Siemens Inveon) that will dock with our existing small animal PET system to form a small animal dual-mode PET/CT system to support basic and translational research at the University of Washington, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center and affiliated institutions. This system will expand and enhance our imaging capabilities to provide small animal CT and small animal PET/CT to our NIH-supported research community. The vast scale and complexity of the problems that have been unearthed by genomic research into afflictions caused by disease and injury has become evident over the last decade. As genomic, proteomic, epigenomic, and other -omics, research continues to progress, a clear and effective role for pre-clinical imaging as a research tool has developed. Pre-clinical imaging and PET/CT in particular, provides evaluation of the heterogeneity of disease progression and response to therapy. In addition PET/CT imaging allows for repeated quantitative measurements over short and long time scales, thus improving efficiency and reducing the duration and cost of studies using animal models. The UW Small Animal PET Facility opened in 2008, initially supported by a NCRR Shared Instrumentation grant. The initial focus and success of the facility was in cancer research. However, the small animal PET imaging resource has attracted investigators in neurology, pharmacology, environmental and forest sciences, and vascular imaging. The success of this program has dictated a need to provide small animal dual-mode PET/CT (i.e. not just PET) and stand-alone small animal CT at our institution to support the research of our NIH funded investigators. This application describes the planned use of small animal PET/CT and small animal CT in the many research programs at our institutions. Our small animal imaging focus has been on cancer, neurology and vascular research, and the addition of a 'dockable' CT unit will expand and enhance our imaging capabilities to support this research. This system will support new research initiatives we are establishing with investigators doing ultrasound shock therapy for lithotripsy, ultrasound for histotripsy and the effects of bone formation and resorption in models of disuse. Additional projects that will initially be supported by this resource include mechanistic studies of hypoxia, lipolysis, tumor cell proliferation; tumor response to therapy and therapy optimization; carotid plaque characterization; avian brain mapping studies; and radiotracer development. The instrument we will acquire will be able to operate as a specimen and ex vivo microCT system and also supply additional CT capability to our small animal PET system to provide better anatomic localization and more accurate attenuation correction capabilities to improve tissue quantitation of biologically specific radiopharmaceuticals required in small animal disease models. Thus acquisition of this state of the art small animal CT system will make a significant contribution to the translational research goals of our highly motivated and distinguished group of investigators.