Title:Network for Translational Research: Optical Imaging (NTROI)

Contact:

Houston Baker, Ph.D.
Program Director
Cancer Imaging Program, NCI
6130 Executive Blvd.
Room 6060
Bethesda, MD 20892
Rockville, MD 20852 (Overnight)
Bus: 301 594-9117
Fax: 301 480-3507
E-mail: bakerhou@mail.nih.gov

Objective of Project:

This reissued RFA will continue NCI’s efforts to develop and translate optical imaging technologies for early cancer detection, measurement of drug response, drug development and image guided therapy. The program will feature teams of academic and industrial researchers linked into a network for sharing of data and methodologies for rapid translation of imaging technologies and methods into clinical settings. Multi-modal imaging platforms that contain at least one optical system will be the focus of the team programs.

Description of Project:

The reissued Network for Translational Research: Optical Imaging (NTROI) (RFA-CA-08-002) will emphasize multi-modality imaging technologies that include at least one optical system. The program will feature expanded goals and updated strategies to incorporate a broader set of emerging imaging platforms, with more emphasis on consensus validation as opposed to their development. Optical imaging is a rapidly emerging imaging modality with the ability to provide resolution scales from the tumor micro-environment to the organ level, using tomographic and endoscopic measurements. Optical technologies are demonstrating success in early cancer detection, diagnosis, image-guided intervention and therapy response evaluation, and are beginning to demonstrate the potential to provide real time imaging and intervention using more than one molecular probe simultaneously. Using a network of teams, the reissued NTROI will seek to improve on existing imaging modalities by the addition of optical methods to traditional techniques. Improvements in diagnostic sensitivity and specificity, screening and early cancer detection, and timely evaluation of response to therapy are expected outcomes of the multi-modality approach.