Photon Migration Codes for Tissue Spectroscopy & Imaging

描述（由申请人提供）：光学光谱和成像方法正在开发用于生物医学应用的非或微创组织诊断，包括感应输送药物或造影剂的分子浓度，探测组织生理状态，以及检测体内疾病的早期阶段。在组织光学中，尽管组织形态学和光吸收和散射引入了检测信号的可变性，但仍然需要获得定量信息，这是一个挑战。该应用程序的总体目标是开发，验证和传播计算代码，以数值模拟光子迁移特性，用于定量组织光谱学和成像。我们将开发和采用创新的计算代码，旨在模拟稳态和时间分辨激发和荧光在复杂组织中的传播，比目前的方法快约102 -104倍。这里开发的计算资源将广泛适用于临床前和临床生物医学光谱学和成像问题，包括需要通过光纤探针配置进行光传递和收集的微创应用。一个具有生物医学光学和临床内窥镜专业知识的多学科研究团队已经组建，以确保这些目标的实现。该R01基金提案的具体目标是：(1)开发和数值测试具有复杂形态和源探测器几何形状的组织中稳态和时间分辨光子迁移的新型计算代码；(2)实验验证在Aim #1中开发的计算代码；(3)通过Pi网站上的下载链接和独立于平台的用户交互界面，有效地将在Aim #1中开发并在Aim #2中验证的计算代码传播给科学界。这里开发和验证的创新计算代码将广泛适用于定量组织光谱学和成像中的各种问题。通过互联网的快速电子传播将促进这些数字工具的广泛使用，这些工具将作为研究组织光学问题的广泛研究人员的资源。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Methods of optical spectroscopy and imaging are being developed for biomedical applications in non- or minimally invasive tissue diagnostics, including sensing molecular concentrations of delivered pharmaceutical or contrast agents, probing tissue physiologic status, and detecting early stages of disease in vivo. In tissue optics, one of the challenges is to obtain quantitative information despite the detected signal variability introduced by tissue morphology and optical absorption and scattering. The overall goal of this application is to develop, validate, and disseminate computational codes to numerically simulate photon migration characteristics useful for quantitative tissue spectroscopy and imaging. We will develop and employ innovative computational codes designed to model steady-state and time-resolved excitation and fluorescent light propagation in complex tissues approximately 102 -104 times faster than current methods. The computational resources developed here will be broadly applicable to problems in pre-clinical and clinical biomedical optical spectroscopy and imaging, including minimally-invasive applications requiring light delivery and collection via fiber-optic probe configurations. A multidisciplinary team of researchers with expertise in biomedical optics and clinical endoscopy has been assembled to ensure that these goals are achieved. The specific aims of this R01 grant proposal are: (1) To develop and numerically test novel computational codes for steady-state and time-resolved photon migration in tissues with complex morphologies and source-detector geometries; (2) To experimentally validate the computational codes developed in Aim #1; (3) To efficiently disseminate the computational codes developed in Aim #1 and validated in Aim #2 to the scientific community via download links and platform-independent user-interactive interfaces on the Pi's web-site. The innovative computational codes developed and validated here will be broadly applicable to a variety of problems in quantitative tissue optical spectroscopy and imaging. Rapid electronic dissemination via the internet will facilitate the generalized use of these digital tools, which will serve as a resource for a broad cross-section of researchers investigating problems in tissue optics.