Molecular imaging: diagnosing diseases before symptoms strike

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Molecular imaging: diagnosing diseases before symptoms strike

[st. Louis, MO., 10-29-02]

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are

developing methods to track molecular events in the body to diagnose disease

long before symptoms appear and to predict the effectiveness of drug

therapies. The research is under way at the School of Medicine's new

Molecular Imaging Center at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology. The

Center is funded by a five-year $9.4 million grant from the National Cancer

Institute.

" Molecular imaging combines the latest in imaging technology with the power

of molecular biology, " says Piwnica-Worms, M.D., Ph.D., professor of

radiology and of molecular biology and pharmacology and director of the new

center.

" We believe that molecular imaging will one day enable us to diagnose

specific molecular events of cancer, neurologic disease or inflammation

earlier in the course of disease, and that this will help doctors identify

the most effective therapy for individual patients. "

Piwnica-Worms described molecular imaging and research being done at the

Center during the 40th annual New Horizons in Science Briefing, sponsored by

the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing, held Oct. 27-30 at

Washington University in St. Louis.

Investigators at the Center are using molecular imaging to study

protein-protein interactions, immune cells attacking a tumor, and the course

of a viral infection and its response to antiviral therapy. Other

researchers are developing a means to noninvasively predict the

effectiveness of particular chemotherapy drugs in patients with advanced

lung cancer. The investigators are studying lung tumors for ways to image

the activity of a protein that pumps certain anticancer drugs out of tumor

cells, rendering the drugs ineffective for those individuals.

Positron emission tomography (PET) is one example of molecular imaging

technology already in use clinically. PET scans are used, for instance, to

detect the spread of certain cancers. Patients are given a form of sugar --

glucose -- that contains a weak radioactive label. The labeled sugar is

taken up more rapidly by tumor cells than by normal cells because the tumor

cells are growing at a faster rate. PET-scan imaging reveals this higher

level of uptake, thereby providing a non-surgical means of detecting an

otherwise hidden tumor.

Researchers at Washington University's Molecular Imaging Center are

developing new applications for existing technologies, such as PET, and

exploring new methods of molecular imaging using near-infrared fluorescence

and bioluminescence probes.

Questions

Contact: Darrell E. Ward, assc. director for research communications,

Washington University School of Medicine, (314) 286-0122;

wardd@...

http://news-info.wustl.edu/News/casw/piwnica.html