Molecular Imaging in Oncology PDF

Preface

Although a relatively new aspect of imaging science and practice, molecular imaging is beginning to make its presence felt. It has done so because it involves the collaboration between two rapidly evolving fields, namely, molecular biology—including genomics, proteomics, and the use of transgenic animal models—and high-sensitivity imaging devices to probe cellular and molecular phenomena in vivo. Those two fields are powerful in their own right, but together they can generate considerable new knowledge about normal cellular processes and disease and, in particular, cancer.

This volume is dedicated to the molecular imaging of cancer, taking a graded approach to the subject by first introducing concepts of basic molecular biology (sect. 1) and the operation of the various imaging modalities (sect. 2). We felt it was necessary for the reader to understand the challenges in the development of imaging probes (sect. 3) and in performing imaging in animal models—the mainstay of current molecular imaging research (sect. 4). More directly germane to the molecular imaging of cancer are chapters dedicated specifically to molecular-genetic imaging (sect. 5), imaging cellular migration and other processes (sect. 6) and clinical translation (sect. 7), where examples from several key clinical challenges are provided (sect. 8). The final chapters highlight imaging in anticancer drug development and how to move into the future through collaboration with industry and the government (sect. 9).

Although molecular imaging is evolving rapidly, due to the incorporation of nanobiotechnology, microfluidics, and other rapidly advancing fields, we have tried to maintain relevance for the practicing clinician—who will be the ultimate arbiter as to whether molecular imaging will actually prove useful for and adopted into clinical practice. Nevertheless, sufficient detail is provided so that graduate students and established practitioners in allied fields, e.g., chemistry, imaging physics, and cell biology, can become acquainted with molecular imaging in cancer and begin incorporating imaging beneficially into their work, likely generating new ideas previously unseen by dedicated imaging scientists.