Tissue-dynamics Imaging for Therapeutic Efficacy in Ovarian Cancer

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This project will employ a non-traditional imaging technology called tissue-dynamics imaging (TDI) to measure the sensitivity of ovarian tumors to chemotherapy and biological treatments. Tissue-dynamics imaging is the first imaging technology to use intracellular motion as an internal vital-signs monitor of cancer tissue. TDI uses digital holography with low-coherence illumination to construct 3D holograms up to a millimeter inside tissue. Dynamic imaging detects diverse cellular motions as endogenous image contrast in a functional imaging approach. Three-dimensional solid tumor models, such as tumor exgrafts and multicellular tumor spheroids, are ideal in vitro models to study complex three-dimensional tumor microenvironments, tumor heterogeneity, and multicellular drug resistance. Tissue dynamics imaging provides the required depth capability, the sensitivity to cellular motions, and the signatures of different dynamical cellular functions to provide quantitative measurements of cellular functioning and proliferation. In the proposed work, tissue dynamics imaging will be used to generate the first drug-response phenotypic profiles in cancer biology applied to tumor exgrafts. The goal is to design a reproducible and sensitive predictive marker to therapy. Current approaches that measure chemo-resistance are cumbersome and not predictive of biological and clinical response. By bridging between the fields of cancer biology and coherent optical physics, we propose that by exploiting the intracellular dynamical properties of ovarian tumors or metastatic implants ex-vivo, this new technology can be adapted to overcome a problem of high clinical relevance for women with ovarian cancer. A commercial partner, Animated Dynamics LLC, will receive technology transfer and construct the first clinic-based TDI system.