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

描述(申请人提供)：在转到光学成像领域之前，候选人曾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一套知识和丰富的经验，以开发有助于理解肿瘤管理的新的医学成像工具和应用程序。候选者的近期目标是升级现有的用于临床前时域测量的混合X射线/近红外断层扫描系统，使其成为对小鼠生长的胶质瘤肿瘤进行成像的最佳选择。该提案的主要研究目标是开发新的数据采集方法和算法，以创建提供与胶质瘤肿瘤生长相关的协同解剖和功能信息的断层扫描图像。荧光分子层析成像和漫反射光学层析成像研究将基于可能提供补充信息的不同光学标记来进行。所提出的方法将使用来自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实用性。这项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，评估在荧光成像引导下进行的胶质瘤肿瘤切除术如何对患者生存产生积极影响。达特茅斯在医学和工程学研究生教育领域拥有大量资源，应聘者将利用这一职业过渡奖在达特茅斯希区柯克医学中心、医学院和诺里斯棉花癌症中心接受培训，并在工程学院进行中央任命。候选人的研究生涯将通过以下方式发展：(I)参加医学工程、组织生物化学和生物统计学的课程，(Ii)参加相关活动和讲座，(Iii)出席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)与在生物医学公司工作的科学家一起规划开发临床前仪器，以及(Vi)利用NCI的资源开发分子成像剂。

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.