A small animal imager for drug delivery and tissue engineering research

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Probing the mechanism of action and improving the performance of therapeutic agents in animals are indispensable parts of developing new and innovative therapeutic interventions. Evaluating the performance of therapeutic agents in small animals is ideal in an academic setting since it is cost effective and provides an optimal system before large animal testing in an industrial setting. Small animal testing, however, is labour intensive. It usually requires large number of animals since the conventional approach is to recover the therapeutic agents at the end of a study period and investigate their action after a given period of time. Recent technologies advances have created small animal imagers where molecular, cellular and tissue-level information could be effectively obtained based on light-emitting probes. This new approach is beginning to allow us to probe the mechanisms of action of therapeutic agents in situ without the need to sacrifice the animal for the retrieval of such agents. It is allowing researchers to rapidly engineer therapeutic agents and optimize their performance in a short period of time. This project is intended to acquire a state-of-the-art instrument for this purpose. This instrument will enhance our research capability by providing valuable information about our therapeutic approaches, and expedite our research activity by making a vital tool available continually for our research. It will lead to reduced use of animals in research and provide a more comprehensive evaluation of therapeutic agents intended for human use.