Cancer Imaging Research Program

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CANCER IMAGING (CI) RESEARCH PROGRAM PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The Cancer Imaging (CI) Program is a transdisciplinary program that integrates imaging engineering research with the study of cancer biology. The goals of this program are to build novel imaging technologies for discerning mechanisms of cancer biology, designing new targeted therapies, and developing innovative imaging modalities for improving patient care. The CI program covers a continuum of imaging research reaching from “molecules to mice to man” that forms the basis for the following three Specific Aims: (1) Utilize imaging agents to study cancer pathogenesis and develop cancer-targeting therapeutics, (2) Codify quantifiable imaging metrics to study cancer biology and improve cancer treatments, and (3) Translate novel imaging methodologies to patient care. These aims reflect major working groups and initiatives that actively engage researchers from basic biology, medicine, chemistry, physics, and engineering backgrounds with other Cancer Center investigators through inter-programmatic collaborations that result in highly impactful advances in imaging and nanomedicine. Extensive use of an array of shared resources, in particular Imaging, Athymic, Cytometry, and Biostatistics facilitate all aspects of member discoveries. Under the leadership of James Basilion (Co-Leader) and Zhenghong Lee (Co-Leader) the CI Program has 29 members including 19 full, 2 associate, and 8 clinical members. Members represent 9 departments, giving rise to a total of $8.1M in research grant funding (annual direct costs), of which $7.3M is peer-reviewed and $4.0M is NCI-funded. Between 2012 and 2016, CI program members published 639 publications. Cancer and program related publications included 27% inter-programmatic, 25% intra-programmatic, 10% inter- and intra- programmatic and 7% that involved collaborations with another Cancer Center. This highly effective program has made major advances in imaging and nanomedicine. Examples include: the discovery and international distribution of a novel quantitative MRI imaging analysis tool based on random magnetic wave generation (MR fingerprinting); development of novel nanoparticle diagnostics and therapeutics, including plant derived viral particles to stimulate host immune rejection of tumors that is now in clinical studies in dogs with melanoma; generation of a fibronectin-targeting agent for detection of breast cancer micrometastases; and the invention of a multimodal in vivo imaging method for following the disposition of nanoparticles on a microscopic scale as well as visualizing the microvasculature of tumors in live animals.