X-ray/Fluorescence Molecular and Diffuse Optical Tomography of Glioma

描述（由申请人提供）：在转入光学成像领域之前，候选人在超弦理论领域从事基本粒子物理和广义相对论的研究。候选人的长期职业目标是成为一名独立的研究人员，在数值和分析建模以及生物医学工程和医学科学方面拥有独特的知识和广泛的经验，以开发新的医学成像工具和应用程序，有助于理解肿瘤管理。候选人的直接目标是升级现有的混合x射线/近红外断层扫描系统，用于临床前时域测量，使其成为小鼠生长的胶质瘤肿瘤成像的最佳选择。本提案的主要研究目标是开发新的数据采集方法和算法，以创建断层成像，提供与胶质瘤肿瘤生长有关的协同解剖和功能信息。荧光分子层析成像和漫射光学层析成像研究将基于不同的光学标记进行，可能提供互补的信息。提出的方法将使用x射线断层扫描的结构解剖图像作为先验信息，增强光学断层扫描数据的效用。该研究将与达特茅斯学院正在进行的一项临床试验协同进行，该试验评估了荧光成像指导下胶质瘤切除如何对患者生存产生积极影响。达特茅斯在医学和工程研究生教育领域拥有重要的资源，候选人将利用这个职业过渡奖在达特茅斯希区柯克医疗中心、医学院和诺里斯棉花癌症中心接受培训，并在工程学院担任中心职位。候选人的研究生涯将通过以下方式发展：(i)学习医学工程、组织生物化学和生物统计学课程，（ii）参加相关活动和讲座，（iii）参加NCI资助的癌症中心的小组会议，（iv）在肿瘤学、放射学和成像会议上展示研究成果，(v)与生物医学公司开发临床前仪器的科学家一起规划。（六）利用NCI资源开发分子显像剂。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Before changing fields to optical imaging, the candidate has worked doing research in elementary particle physics and general relativity in the area of superstring theory. The long term career goal of the candidate is to become an independent researcher who has a unique set of knowledge and breadth of experience in numerical and analytical modeling as well as in biomedical engineering and medical sciences in order to develop new medical imaging tools and applications contributing to understanding tumor management. The immediate goal of the candidate is to upgrade an existing hybrid x-ray/near-infrared tomography system for pre-clinical time-domain measurements, making it optimal for imaging glioma tumors grown in mice. The main research objective of this proposal is to develop new data acquisition methods and algorithms to create tomography images that provide synergistic anatomical and functional information pertaining to glioma tumor growth. Fluorescence molecular tomography and diffuse optical tomography studies will be performed based on different optical markers potentially providing complementaryinformation. The proposed methods will use structural anatomical images from x-ray tomography as prior information enhancing the utility of optical tomography data. The research will be conducted in synergy with a clinical trial underway at Dartmouth College evaluating how glioma tumor resection guided by fluoresence imaging can positively affect patient survival. Dartmouth has significant resources in the field of medical and engineering graduate education, and the candidate will use this career transition award to train at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, the Medical School and the Norris Cotton Cancer Center, with a central appointment in the Engineering School. The candidate's research career will be developed by (i) taking courses in medical engineering, tissue biochemistry and biostatistics, (ii)taking part in related events and lectures, (iii)attending group meetings at the NCI funded Cancer Center, (iv) presenting research results at oncology, radiology and imaging conferences, (v) planning with scientists working in biomedical companies developing pre-clinical instruments, and (vi)making use of the NCI resources in molecular imaging agent development.