I am interested in combining molecular biology and cell biology technologies with powerful, non-invasive imaging modalities, coined molecular imaging, to provide physicians and researchers with the ability to detect, diagnose, and treat disease at its earliest stages. Molecular imaging has successfully been utilized in the recent past as a technology for imaging various aspects of mammalian physiology. However, the information that can be obtained using these non-invasive modalities is limited since it relies on the expression and imaging of single gene markers. While this information is useful, it can be misleading. For example, markers over-expressed in diseased tissues are also expressed in normal tissues in a spatio-temporal manner making interpretation of the results in a diagnostic setting potentially difficult. Several studies have demonstrated a high degree of both sensitivity and specificity for the identification and molecular classification of diseases by measuring the expression of multiple disease-associated changes in gene expression. The simultaneous over-expression of more than one of these gene markers is, therefore, more predictive of the disease state.
Until now, molecular imaging was unable to image more than one marker at a time, requiring either different imaging technologies to be utilized simultaneously or requiring different probes with short biological half-lives to be imaged in rapid succession. Consequently, I am investigating novel molecular imaging paradigms that utilize multiple cellular targets to generate imageable signals in solid tumors. By creating such platforms, we will be able to image cancers with greater specificity and provide a clearer linkage between pathologically indistinguishable cancer stages. In addition, these emergent tools may be utilized to define the cellular mechanisms of both cancer and inflammation and allow precise visualization of the molecular events within a discrete cell or, heuristically, within a living organism. |
